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Palermo want loss overturned

29 January 2008 | 21:30 - Reuters

Serie A side Palermo are looking to have Sunday's (AEDT) 1-0 defeat to AS Roma overturned or the match replayed due to the actions of a ball boy.

 

Palermo President Maurizio Zamparini told reporters the ball boy had returned the ball to Roma too quickly at a corner kick, which led to Brazilian Mancini's headed winner.

"I have dispatched my lawyers and I have asked for a 3-0 win or at least for the match to be replayed," said Zamparini.

"We have read the rules - the ball boys must stay behind the advertising boards and throw the ball to the nearest player. What happened on Saturday is against the rules."

Roma are second in the league while Palermo have lost four in a row in all competitions and slipped to ninth.

The Italian game has been hit by a number of controversial refereeing decisions recently. Some clubs have said the current crop of match officials, whittled down by the 2006 match-fixing scandal, are too young and lack experience.

There have also been calls for foreign officials to be brought in but Italian referees' chief Pierluigi Collina has defended his men.

"They make mistakes but it is absurd to judge them with television," he told Tuesday's Gazzetta dello Sport.

"In France, Spain, England they have more problems than us. Who do I call?"

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