The sports department of the state television Rai announced that they are going to proceed with a series of strike actions, immediately after the completion of the . Since yesterday, at the same time, as a sign of protest, they do not mention their name during the live connections from the Games.
“We expect the company to understand the damage that the director of Raisport caused, in order: to the viewers who pay the subscription to public television, to Rai as a business and to its entire sports sector which works, as always, with great passion to cover this great event hosted by the country,” the journalists said in a statement.
The errors of the director of Rai Sport
With this move, they directly questioned the quality of the television broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Games, which took place last Friday.
The main presenter was the director of Rai Sport, Paolo Petreka who – as the press also wrote – made a series of important errors.
For example, starting the link, he welcomed the crowd “from the Stadio Olimpico in Rome” while at the San Siro in Milan, confused the president of the International Olympic Committee, Christy Coventry, with the daughter of the Italian president of the republic Sergio Mattarella and did not recognize a number of athletes. The director and the presenter of Rai, at the same time, did not show up close and did not mention the singer Galli, who performed an anti-war poem by Gianni Rodari.
They demand his resignation
As the newspaper Corriere della Sera writes, “the journalists of the sports department of the Italian public television are determined to achieve the resignation or replacement of their director”. According to the information so far, Petreka does not mean to resign immediately, but he will not, however, take over the telecast of the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics, which will take place on April 22, at the Verona Arena.
Sports journalists’ relations with their manager have been strained for some time. Much of the editorial criticized his choice to outsource important missions, instead of leveraging in-house potential.
Finally, it is recalled that the original plan provided for the transmission of the opening ceremony of the Games to Rai’s experienced sports editor, Auro Bulbarelli. Who, however, was replaced two days before the start of the Olympic Games, because in a press conference he revealed that “the Italian president of the republic, Mattarella, would make a big surprise”. The reference was to the arrival of the Italian president at the San Siro stadium, with a historic tram driven by the motorcycle champion, Valentino Rossi. This “revelation” of Bulbarelli reportedly disturbed the organizers and Petreka, finally, decided to take over the live broadcast from the Italian co-capital himself.
