Napoli-Milan: after the first goal the ball was on the sidelines, why

Something similar had already been seen in the Italian Super Cup in January in Saudi Arabia. Immediately after the first goal, the referee obtained the ball from the players to remove it from the dynamics of the match and to deliver it to a representative on the sideline. The destination: a display case where it had remained closed and kept until the triple whistle of that triumphant 3-0 win by Inter over the Rossoneri cousins, in Riyadh. At Diego Armando Maradona, with the Azzurri instead of the Nerazzurri in the Napoli-Milan, the curtain was repeated.

Why

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The motivation behind what was seen in the two matches is in fact practically the same: the two initiatives are twins and are both attributable to the partnership that binds the world of fan tokens to various clubs in the Italian league and to Lega Serie A itself. Thus as in the winter Milan derby, the balls in question – those of each goal – will soon end up in the hands of various fans in possession of digital tokens. It matters little that they are redeemable on the platform’s app, that there is a reverse auction to assign one or that the method is still different, because this is the essence. As happened in the Supercoppa and as will happen for the remaining five Coppa Italia matches, there are a total of 20 league matches whose “goal balls” will follow this path. In between, only the insertion of a chip with NFC technology that allows you to review the relative goal by simply bringing your smartphone closer. The other match this weekend that was involved in the fan token initiative was Spezia-Salernitana on Sunday afternoon football.