ROME: Italian state television channel RAI has suspended for two weeks former World Cup-winning defender Fulvio Collovati.

The former Milan player appeared 50 times for Italy and was a member of the squad who won the world title in Spain in 1982.

However the 61-year-old sparked a storm while appearing as a football analyst on Sunday, during the show Quelli che il Calcio.

Collovati said: “When I hear a woman talk about tactics, it turns my stomach upside down. I can not do it. If she just talks about the match, how it went, OK But she can not talk about tactics, because a woman does not understand as a man.”

Milena Bertolini, who will manage Italy’s team at this year’s Women’s World Cup in France, criticised Collovati’s “primitive mentality.”

Other critics included Patrizia Panico, a former international who coaches Italy’s men’s under-15s, as well as Inter Milan captain Regina Baresi, daughter of Giuseppe Baresi and niece of Franco Baresi, a world champion in 1982 alongside Collovati.

Collovati has since apologised.

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