ITALIAN SERIE A:PIERLUIGI COLLINA, once regularly described as the number one referee in the world, is perhaps regretting that he did not devote his retirement to vine growing. These days Collina is in charge of refereeing appointments in Italian football, but that has not saved him from controversy given that he has been forced to live with a police escort since last November because of a series of threats, including bullets in the post.

Denouncing the Collina situation yesterday, Italian federation vice-president Cesare Gussoni also revealed that one of Collina's appointees, referee Mauro Bergonzi, had been forced to move out of his home and live under an assumed identity for two weeks last November.

Bergonzi's "crime" was obvious enough: he was the referee who awarded two dubious penalties to Napoli during their 3-1 home defeat of Juventus last October.

Some so-called Juventus "fans" were apparently so annoyed by his decisions that they decided to pay him a not-so-friendly visit a few days after the game. The only problem was that the enraged fans got the wrong man, and assaulted a Bergonzi lookalike who turned out to be a bank manager from Bergonzi's home town, Savona, on the Liguria coast.

Alerted by the bank manager, police then informed Bergonzi, recommending that he change domicile for two weeks and obliging him to live under the sort of protection programme normally extended to Mafiosi turned state witness.

Juventus fans, of course, have had plenty to get worked up about this season. With the Old Lady of Italian football back in Serie A, after a season in Serie B because of the club's wholesale involvement in match-fixing and referee "manipulation", many referees have taken a hard line with the club for fear of being accused of having a pro-Juventus bias.

While he outlined the Bergonzi incident yesterday, vice-president Gussoni pointed out that safety considerations for referees in the lower divisions were of even greater concern to the football federation.

So far this season more than 200 referees have had to receive hospital treatment as a result of assaults immediately after "controversial" games.

Nearly all these referees have been handling lower division or amateur games, with all of the violent incidents taking place in the southern regions of Campania, Puglia and Calabria.

"Enough of this before it is too late, we cannot go on like this," Gussoni said. "Our referees are receiving all kinds of threats - insults in the post or via text messages or email . . . We cannot go on like this."