"You're kidding!" Italy reveals Shevchenko's act after Ukraine's departure in the Euro 2024 qualifiers

Gabriele Gravina, President of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), responded to a provocation by a journalist who asked him in an interview whether Italy had become a greater enemy of Ukraine than Russia after the incident that occurred at the end of the match between the Italian and Ukrainian national teams. In the match of the 6th round of qualification for the 2025 European Football Championship, head referee Jesus Gil Manzano did not give a penalty kick to the Italian team for a violation of the rules on Mykhailo Mudryk.

Gravina admitted that there is no conflict between Ukraine and Italy in the football sphere.

"Are you kidding?" Shevchenko was the first to call us with congratulations. He is a friend with whom I have had a direct line for many years. He knows who we are and appreciates with all his heart what FIGC Towers has done, is doing, and will do for the Ukrainian people. We deserved it in that match, just as we rightfully deserved to win the qualifiers. No one talks about it, but we had the toughest group with four difficult teams," TuttoCagliar quoted Gravina as saying.

The FIGC head also commented on the disallowed 11-meter penalty in the final minutes.

"Reducing the whole match to one episode seems to me to be pure masochism. I also think it's a serious disrespect to the Italian players not to give them credit for this victory, for the good game they showed with the new coach. I would like to ask the critics. What if we hadn't qualified? I think they would have said that Italy's GDP would have fallen because of Gravina, who forced Jorginho to take a penalty, which he missed..." the official said.

Gravina jokingly added that he would ask Italian NOC President Giovanni Malago to include in the charter that the head of the FIGC who fails to qualify for the Euros "automatically loses his position."

As reported by OBOZ.UA, after the game, even the captain of the Azzurri, Gianluigi Donnarumma, admitted that the defender of the "Scudra Azzurri" had violated the rules. Social networks reacted strongly to the episode, and the Italian media did not defend the referee. Russian journalists also agreed that Ukraine was condemned.

Later, Italy's head coach Luciano Spalletti expressed irritation over the discussion of the unassigned penalty and rejected the idea that Serhiy Rebrov's team had been deprived of a ticket to the tournament.

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