Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo has defended the decision to move on-pitch microphones to hide racist chants from fans, saying it's not censorship to get the "best value out of a product."
Italian newspaper La Repubblica (h/t Football Italia) obtained a tape of De Siervo telling club representatives that directors have been instructed to turn off the microphones, a measure taken after the New York Times published a story on Italy being, in De Siervo's words, the "new front of racism in football."
When the paper reached out to him and asked if he was trying to whitewash racism, De Siervo went on the defensive:
"In the audio, you hear only a fraction of the reasoning.