The general manager of Lube, Giuseppe Cormio, made an exclusive statement toVolleyball.it, commenting on the case of Alex Nikolov's sending-off in Modena and the subsequent one-match ban. The SuperLega's top scorer will miss the most important match of the half-season – the home game against Milano, as the result of the match directly affects the final formation of the Coppa Italia quarter-final pairs. Cormio believes that the red card was the result of a blatant error in the video replay, which failed to account for an obvious block touch by the opponent during the Bulgarian international's attack. According to him, Nikolov's reaction was calm and disproportionate to the severity of the imposed sanction.

The manager also expresses dissatisfaction with the fact that, as of this season, the penalty can no longer be replaced by a monetary fine – a change about which clubs were not officially informed. He also criticizes the refereeing, noting that in an already decided match with no tension, a player received two cards without insulting anyone. According to Cormio, some referees seek unnecessary visibility instead of managing the atmosphere on the court with the necessary empathy.

In conclusion, he emphasizes that the problem is systemic and requires an open dialogue between the league and the referee committee to avoid similar incidents in the future, which occurred in a completely calm game context.

photo: Nikolay Varadinov