By Mark Baber
October 14 – Italy’s financial police raided Italian League and club offices as part of an investigation into alleged irregularities in the assignment of TV broadcasting rights involving rights agency Infront, Sky Italia and Mediaset, Italian media reported on Tuesday. Bari and Genoa also allegedly received irregular help in meeting the financial criteria for Serie B and Serie A.
The inquiry is looking into whether Infront Italy SRL and its president Marco Bogarelli colluded with Berlusconi-controlled Mediaset and Murdoch-controlled Sky Italia to exclude competition as the two media giants jointly gobbled up the rights to broadcast top tier Italian football for €945 million per season over the 2015-18 seasons.
According to a report in Tuesday’s Corriere della Sera, Genoa owner Enrico Preziosi and Bari president Gianluca Paparesta are also being investigated for accepting illegal payments from Infront in order to register their clubs with league authorities.
Preziosi allegedly accepted a €15 million ($17 million) payment which can be traced back to Infront and Andrea Baroni’s tax consultancy company Tax and Finance.
Baroni has been arrested on charges of criminal association aimed at money laundering and tax evasion. Reports linking him to Infront were denied by the company who stated: “Infront does not have and has never had any business relationship or involvement whatsoever with the Swiss consultancy company Tax & Finance and/or Mr Andrea Baroni.”
Meanwhile Lazio president Claudio Lotito was being investigated for obstructing the work of watchdog body Covisoc in his role as an executive for the Italian Soccer Federation.
Infront, a sports consulting company headed up by Sepp Blatter’s nephew Philippe Blatter (against whom no allegations have been made) and which recently was acquired by Chinese investors, acts as an advisor to the Serie A.
The company issued a statement saying: “We confirm that on October 9, 2015, Milan prosecutors opened an investigation into Marco Bogarelli, Giuseppe Ciocchetti and Andrea Locatelli, Infront Italy managers, regarding alleged collaboration in inappropriate financial practices regarding two Italian soccer teams and the alleged rigging of the administrative process for the awarding of Serie A TV rights for the 2015-2018 period.”
According to Infront: “The company Infront is not under investigation for these questions.” Infront and its management are cooperating with the authorities to order to demonstrate the correctness of the actions of the company managers.”
Mediaset has also issued a statement saying its staff had “worked completely within the rules.”
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