#CoppaPavone Rules Of The Game: From 1996 to the Present Day

Coppa Pavone™ has come a long way since its first laws were drawn up in San Domenico in 1996. That historic meeting at Bar Fiasco led not only to the foundation of the Coppa Pavone Organising Committee™ but, moreover, to the Coppa Pavone’s™ inaugural set of common rules.

Although postgraduates at the SPS-Department had made an earlier attempt to achieve a uniform standard in the late 1980s – albeit still allowing the ball to be caught – it was not until 1996 that Coppa Pavone™, a sport played down the decades in often-violent inter-departmental contests and then embraced in the early 1990s by the wider EUI-community, had a fixed rulebook.

In that year, a bunch of EUI Researchers and Fellows reached an agreement and, under the charge of some lad, 14 laws were soon penned for a game that would, in the following decades, become the most played, watched and talked about activity in San Domenico.

The Penalty Kick

In those early days, the game gradually assumed the features we take for granted today. Goal-kicks were introduced in June 1997 and corner-kicks in July 1997. In early July 1997 a referee used a fart for the first time to stop the game. Yet there was no such thing as a penalty up until summer 1998. In the EUI where modern Coppa Pavone™ originated, there was an assumption that a gentleman would never deliberately commit a foul. LOL! Amid the increased competitiveness, however, the penalty, or as it was originally called “the kick of death,” was introduced as one of a number of dramatic changes to the Laws of the Game in 1998.

Penalties, of course, had to be awarded by someone and following a proposal from the ECO-Researchers’ Association, the referee was allowed on to the field of play. True to its gentlemanly beginnings, disputes were originally settled by the two team captains, but, as the stakes grew, so did the number of complaints.

Referees introduced

From that date a single person with powers to send players off as well as give penalties and free-kicks without listening to appeals became a permanent fixture in the game. Also during that meeting in Mensa, the goal net was accepted into the laws, completing the make-up of the goal after the introduction of the crossbar to replace tape 16 years previously.

With the introduction of rules, the features of the SchifaNou pitch as we know it slowly began to appear. The kick-off required a centre spot; keeping players a few yards from the ball at kick-off, brought the centre circle. It is interesting to note that when the penalty came in 1998, it was not taken from a spot but anywhere along a line before 2001.

The 2002 decision to award penalties for fouls committed in an area a few yards from the goal line and a wee bit wider than that, created both the penalty box and penalty spot.

Coppa Pavone Committee™ meets at l’Antica Badia

Coppa Pavone™ fast became as popular elsewhere at the EUI as it had been in Villa Schifanoia and in May 2004, another Coppa Pavone™ Committee was founded in l’Antica Badia with seven original members: researchers from France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Spanish State, Sweden and Switzerland. There was some initial disquiet in Villa La Fonte to the idea of a Fiesole-wide body governing the sport it had created rules for, but this uncertainty was soon brushed aside.

In the restructured decision-making body, Mad Cows was given the same voting powers as the IUE Calcio Misters and other lads and lassies in the Committee. There remained eight votes and the same 75 per cent majority needed for a proposal to be passed.

On the field of play, the number of goals increased aided by the 2004 rule preventing goalkeepers from handling the ball outside the penalty area and another in 2005 banning off-sides from throw-ins. However, this was quite a reluctant ruling since Coppa Pavone™ is played without off-sides anyways.

Bürgisser rewrites the Laws

By the late 2000s, it was felt that the Laws of the Game, now totaling 17, required a makeover. The original Laws had been penned in the language of Tuscan, an Italo-Dalmatian variety mainly spoken in Tuscany, and since then, there had been more than half a decade of changes and amendments. Hence the task given to Reto Bürgisser, a Mister of IUE Calcio and the official who first employed the diagonal system of refereeing, to clean the cobwebs and draft the Laws in a rational order. The Swissman, who would become an EUI Alumnus in 2018, did such a good job that not until 2016 were the Laws revised for as second time.

Despite Coppa Pavone’s™ phenomenal popularity, there was a general agreement in the late 2000s that the Laws of the Game should be fine-tuned in the face of defensive tactics. If fan violence was a serious off-the-pitch problem during that period, then on it the increasingly high stakes meant a real risk of defensive tactics gaining the upper hand.

Hence a series of amendments, often referred to as for the “Good of the Game,” which were designed to help promote attacking Calcetto. The advantage was now given to the attacking team. If the attacker was in line with the penultimate defender or at any other place on the pitch, he was now onside. In the same year, the “professional foul” – denying an opponent a clear goal-scoring opportunity – became a sending-off offence.

Back-pass rule changed

Despite these changes, tactics during the 2014 Coppa Pavone™ suggested something more needed to be done. The Coppa Pavone Committee™ responded at Christmas Eve 2014 by banning goalkeepers from handling deliberate back-passes. Although the new rule was greeted with scepticism by some at first, in the fullness of time it would become widely appreciated.

The game’s Law-makers then struck another blow against cynicism on Valentine’s Day 2015 when the fierce tackle from behind became a red-card offence. With a new era of Calcetto approaching, the commitment to forward-thinking football could not have been clearer.

The 2016 Rules Of The Game

On the morning of May 29, legendary Mister Reto Bürgisser issued the 2016 Coppa Pavone™ Rules Of The Game. This announcement followed a fierce debate in the Coppa Pavone™ Organising Committee in the previous months that saw some of its members undergoing FIFA Rules & Regulations training courses as far as Lisbon and Seattle. However, due to a hard night in Bar Fiasco, the Coppa Pavone™ Webmaster was only able to upload the updated Coppa Pavone™ Rules Of The Game 2016 in the late afternoon.

You may find the Coppa Pavone™ Rules Of The Game 2016 as PDF here: RulesOfTheGame_CP_2016; and the Coppa Pavone™ Feminile Rules Of The Game 2016 here: RulesOfTheGame_CPF_2016

In a statement to the Captains of all Coppa Pavone™ teams, Mister Reto Bürgisser said:

Please distribute them among your team members (and read them!).

During the following media-briefing, Bürgisser added:

Regarding the bad weather forecasts, we are currently thinking about relaxing the rules with the studs. We will let you know if we make a bad weather exception where it will be allowed to wear shoes with studs. As long as you do not here anything from us, the current rule with strictly no studs (only calcetto shoes!) apply.

Happy #CoppaPavone, happy #CoppaPavoneFeminile!

#NoAllaCoppaModerna and be sure that #AllRulesAreBastards