Damasco on the road
Marching to Georgia
Carlo Damasco, Italy's top referee is heading for Tblissi in Georgia this weekend for a vital World Cup qualifier between Georgia and Portugal – a big journey for the man from Naples.
It is a vital match for the two countries concerned. This is the first leg of a two-leg qualifier, the winner of which will got directly to France in 2007, the loser into the battles of répechage. It is a big journey for Carlo, his first IRB appointment, and important one in his career.
The reason why Carlo started refereeing is different. Many referees started because of injury – physical injury. Carlo started because the damage was done by his club, or at least as he saw it.
Carlo was a 10-year-old schoolboy when he started playing rugby with the Torrese Club in Naples and then moved on to playing scrumhalf for Partenope Napoli, a club in Serie A which is the second division of Italian club rugby. He also played for Italy Under-17 against France. But disappointment was not far away.
Partenope Napoli imported a scrumhalf from Argentina. That ended young Carlo's playing career and "at 21 I started a new adventure".
At his school was a teacher who was also an assessor of referees Gianni Romano who said to Carlo: "Come and see the world of referees, enjoyment guaranteed."
Enjoyment has also taken him to many parts of the world as his star started rising in 2004. In that year he was a referee at the IRB's Under-19 Championship in Durban. The next year he was in Mendoza for the IRB's Under-21 World Championship. That year he also refereed the final of the European Challenge Cup between Worcester Warriors and Auch. And he had his first Heineken Cup match – Ospreys vs Clermont Auvergne. At the end of the 2006 season he refereed the final of Italy's Super 10 between Benetton Treviso and Calvisano.
He is an referee gathering experience.
Now he is on the IRB's panel of touch judges and television match officials. There is a group of 21 referees on the IRB's international panel and then 19 referees on the touch judge/TMO panel. That means that Carlo is one of the top 40 referees in the world.
He has a busy month – World Cup qualifier in Tblissi, then TMO to Chris White in Paris when France play New Zealand and then touch judge in to Alan Lewis in Paris when France play Argentina.
Carlo was born in Naples on 3 September 1972. He is married to Mara and they have a daughter Sara. At present he is a salesman with a part-time contract with the Italian Rugby Federation working with the Elite Academy which concentrates on players under the age of 20, but would like to be employed full-time in rugby refereeing.
Carlo will get to Tblissi by Lufthansa on Thursday night accompanied by his touch-judge compatriots Paolo Ventura and Claudio Passacantando.
