‘Football’s sexiest referee’ was left furious as she raged that her ‘summer is destroyed’ following her beloved country’s World Cup heartbreak
Italian referee Claudia Romani was left furious after her country suffered World Cup heartbreak.
For the third World Cup in a row, Italy will not be there, after Gennaro Gattuso’s side were beaten in the play-off final by Bosnia & Herzegovina. Italy were forced into the play-offs and beat Northern Ireland in the semi-final in Bergamo.
The 2006 champions travelled to Bosnia for the final in confident spirits as favourites after celebrating Bosnia’s penalty shootout victory over Wales, which massively backfired. The firm favourites took the lead after just 15 minutes when Moise Kean gave them the lead.
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However, the visitors found themselves reduced to 10-men before half-time when Inter Milan centre-back Alessandro Bastoni was given his marching orders.
The game saw the hosts pile on the pressure and force an equaliser through Haris Tabakovic to send the tie to extra-time. Bosnia continued to force the issue but lacked the quality to find the killer goal before penalties were needed.
Pio Esposito and Bryan Cristante missed the target while Gianluigi Donnarumma was unable to keep out all four successful attempts by Bosnia.
Italian football has been rocked to its core following the defeat. Three consecutive World Cups without the four-time champions has been confirmed. And the Azzurri haven’t played a knockout game at the tournament since their final win against France in 2006.
Football fans all over Italy have been left furious, none more so than referee Romani who appeared in a bikini with an Italian scarf draped over her as she answered questions from her fans on her Instagram story.
But inevitably the conversation turned to Italy’s miserable World Cup exit as one fan asked: “How do you feel after Italy was eliminated from the 2026 World Cup?”
To which a devastated Claudia replied: “It is sad. I grew up when we were always getting very far.” The stunning official also posted another snap saying: “Our summer is destroyed”.
Once upon a time, Romani could have been under consideration to referee at the World Cup as a representative of Italy after she gave up modelling in 2014 to pursue her dream of becoming an official.
Romani gained qualifications to take charge of matches in the top flight of Italian football but her potential on the pitch never materialised as she returned to modelling and social media influencing.