ROME, 17 May 2006 — Italy’s Football Federation, shaken by match-fixing allegations, suffered further embarrassment yesterday when it was placed under emergency administration.
The country’s national Olympic committee (CONI) put Guido Rossi, a former head of the country’s stock market regulator, in charge of the federation with a six-month renewable mandate.
“I wish him good luck, he will need it,” said CONI president Gianni Petrucci. “Football, our sport, needs to regain credibility.” Federation president Franco Carraro and his vice-president Innocenzo Mazzini resigned last week.
Rossi, 75, said he planned to introduce new regulations to help clean up Italian soccer.
“We need rules that will be a deterrent and with serious sanctions,” he told a news conference. Magistrates in Naples probing telephone intercepts and looking into suspicions of match-fixing have placed 41 people under investigation. Italian champions Juventus are at the center of the affair. Their entire board has resigned and they could be stripped of titles and face relegation to Serie B if their officials are found guilty of attempting to influence the outcome of matches. Juventus won their second successive Serie A title, the 29th in their history, on Sunday. AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina have also come under the scrutiny of investigators along with referees, federation and club officials. Rossi faces a race against time to conclude the federation’s own probe into the affair because the deadline for presenting European soccer’s ruling body with the list of clubs for the lucrative Champions League and UEFA Cup is July 27.
