The president of the League Simonelli on the pitch in the hours in which the arbitration case exploded with the investigation that forced Rocchi to take a step back. The stability of Serie A on the transfer market is at stake.
The great black swan that risks sinking Italian football well beyond its crisis. A reputational damage that is difficult to cope with in an already complex moment and which would have repercussions for many years, just as the effects of Calciopoli and Juventus’ exit from the scene were felt for a couple of decades. This is what animates the leaders of the Serie A Football League in the hours in which the arbitration case exploded, with the news of the notification of a notice of guarantee to the (suspended) designator Gianluca Rocchi.
Hypothesis of crime, sports fraud in competition and two of the three charges which refer to Rocchi’s possible move to guarantee Inter welcome referees at the end of last season. A deadly mix twenty years after Calciopoli, a name that since the publication of the indiscretion, then confirmed, has returned to the headlines of the web, newspapers and comments.
That’s why, after one night, Ezio Maria Simonelli who is president of the Lega Calcio Serie A decides to take the field. A long note to try to put some principles on paper: the presumption of innocence and the need to wait until the rather nebulous picture is clear; the statement that whoever made a mistake must pay; above all, the claim that no one should be allowed to question the regularity of the championships. At least not until proven otherwise.
Here is the full text of the note from the Lega Calcio Serie A signed by president Ezio Maria Simonelli: “Following what I have read in all the media, I would like to remind you that, as in any other situation, these are accusations made by the investigators and that it is everyone’s duty to consider them as such in a normal democratic dialectic. Hasty judgments or conclusions of any kind are out of place, while dutifully waiting for the investigations to complete their journey to establish the truth. None of us knows any detail of the matter and it is our duty to be vouched for precise duty up to the last level of judgement. Otherwise, there is the risk of enormous reputational damage to the Serie A system, and to the entire Italian football movement, with a distorted narrative and a real media pillory. Furthermore, on the merits, it is known that both the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the CONI Prosecutor’s Office have already acted on some points of the investigation. Ordinary justice will take its course, but we cannot ignore the work already carried out at the time by the sports bodies authorities, who have already taken action in light of new facts of possible disciplinary importance. We have the duty to guarantee that the football system ensures transparency and equal treatment, calling on anyone to avoid exploitation that only generates misinformation. By trusting in the work of the competent bodies, it cannot be a warning that calls into question the intellectual honesty and the work of an entire system regularity of the championship”
