Roma’s debut in Serie A this season had not been exactly shimmering, but things can always go worse it would seem. The Giallorossi didn’t manage to break a nil-nil stalemate against Verona at the Marc’Antonio Bentegodi Stadium on Saturday night. But now, they even saw the verdict of the pitch overturned as they were handed a 0-3 loss in view of the irregular position of Amadou Diawara.
Diawara was a starter against Verona on Saturday night and played for 88 minutes for Roma. However, he could not have been lined up as he was not part of the official 25-player list communicated by the Giallorossi to the Italian Football authorities before the beginning of the season.
The Guinean midfielder was still left in the additional U-22 players’ list, which he was part of in the last season. Too bad that Diawara had just turned 23 on July 17 – which made him no longer eligible to be part of that list.
Before each season, in fact, each Serie A club must communicate an official list of maximum 25 players from their roster and an additional list of U-22 players that can include as many names as they want. But, due to the issue above, Amadou Diawara was not part of the first list and was not eligible to be in the second anymore.
The Giallorossi will likely appeal against the ruling as the issue seems to have happened due to a simple mistake and they didn’t take any concrete advantage out of it. Roma still had four empty slots in their 25-man list and could have easily used one to include Diawara.
Good faith, however, may not be enough of an explanation as a similar case from 2016 equally resulted in Sassuolo being awarded a 0-3 loss when player Antonino Ragusa was mistakenly left out of the 25-player list.
Definitely a bad season start for Roma, whose unexpected loss may add up to the agitation surrounding the possible departure of Edin Dzeko and Arkadiusz Milik’s hesitation about joining the Giallorossi.