An interesting interview was given by Mendy Difala, one of the best known referees her Euroleague.
The experienced referee referred, among other things, to the threats he received after Olympiacos – Barcelona two years ago, which led him to delete social media.
At the same time, he referred to the way Vassilis Spanoulis and Sarounas Jasikevicius behave towards the referees.
Difala mentioned, among other things, in the “Triple Threat Show” of “Amerikanos24”:
As for whether he does anything else alongside his work as a referee: “Some decide to dedicate themselves only to being referees and some others, like me, do something else at the same time. Personally, I have been an English teacher since 2007. Now, I am lucky to teach at the University.”
On whether the “perfect” game exists: “The perfect game does not exist because at some point we will definitely make a mistake. Sometimes these mistakes are more or less important. You just want to avoid making a mistake that will affect the outcome. So the perfect game is when the best team wins and when at the end nobody comments on the refereeing or even remembers you were there, but that doesn’t happen often.”
About whether he has received threats after a game: “I will share something with you. Two years ago I was on the refereeing team for the playoff match between Olympiacos and Barcelona. In the last second there is a foul on Jabari Parker. So I am the center referee in the phase and I can see the shooter’s right hand from my side. I see that the defender is holding the hand with his left while pretending to defend normally with his right. So I blow the whistle, even though the game is tied and there’s only one second left. I heard a lot after that. Some said “It was a 50/50 phase”. No, it wasn’t a 50/50 phase.”
On what forced him to delete social media: “After Olympiacos – Barcelona I received too many messages and now I have neither Instagram nor Facebook. I don’t have social media anymore. After that particular play I received a lot of threats and bad words and I was just thinking “Come on, I was just doing my job”. I’m not against you or your team, I just want to be flawless. At the end of the day, I don’t care who loses and who wins, I just want to do a good job.”
On how Vassilis Spanoulis and Saras Jasikevicius react to refereeing as coaches: “I would say that Spanoulis as a coach is very calm. I have never seen him behave disrespectfully. I think Jasikevicius has changed a bit. He’s a little calmer. Both coaches, however, are very smart and understand that they cannot use their persona to influence us. They both respect us and just want to win. They are still like players, you can feel it, they are very active. I remember one day Saras was coming into the park and I said to him “Please you have to stay in your place” and he said “I’m sorry”. Then he did it again and I said “I see you still want to play” and he said “Yes of course, I’d love to show them how to do it”.
On whether there are players and coaches who are difficult to manage: “If I say some names, it might be used against me. However, there are players and coaches who are more difficult to manage. We know before the game which players and which coach to watch out for.”