Football and basketball, clash between Abodi and Malagò over club budget control

A glimmer of dialogue opened up in the evening to mend the institutional rift that is affecting Italian sport after the release of the "draft" on the new government agency in charge of controlling the budgets of professional football and basketball clubs. After the Federal Council meeting on Monday 6 May, to discuss the matter, the FIGC president Gabriele Gravina asked for a meeting, together with the CONI president Giovanni Malagò, with the Minister for Sport and Youth Affairs Andrea Abodi. A request that was immediately accepted by Abodi, who expressed his willingness to meet the top management of Italian sport and football. An opening that seems to open up to the diaologue in view of that rewriting of the 'draft' circulated so far, to which Abodi had referred in the morning. Even if the minister, in a note, reiterates the objective of 'configuring a third-party instrument, in the common interest of making the national football system more efficient, credible, sustainable and competitive'.

"After the meeting between the federal components gathered in Rome at the FIGC, in which the unanimous opposition to the project for the institution of the so-called 'Agency for the economic and financial supervision of professional sports clubs' was shared, as presented in the draft sent on 3 May by the Ministry for Sport, president Gabriele Gravina will ask Minister Abodi to open an urgent discussion on the issue, together with Coni's no. 1 Malagò". This, instead, is the content of the press release issued by the Italian Football Federation, which also underlined that 'during the meeting several formal and substantial criticalities were highlighted and the utmost willingness to confrontation was manifested as of now, while respecting the autonomy of sport'.

In the morning, the president of the Italian Olympic Committee, Giovanni Malagò, had spoken of a 'rule that was already wrong in form' and of the risk of 'a global disgrace'. For Malagò, 'apart from the fact of substance, there is a fact of form: Coni read that document in Repubblica and then in the agencies. And it only got the draft through the FIGC, which had received it shortly before from the minister. I would have at least expected it to be sent to us as well. This is the good morning of the story'.

Malagò emphasised the danger of an invasion of the autonomy of sport. 'Will Uefa and Fifa serenely accept this political interference in Italian football? I have serious doubts that this can be accepted by international sports bodies. So, at the very least, before taking any position at the regulatory level, this must be verified. Otherwise there is a risk of a worldwide embarrassment and, unfortunately, Italian governments are not new to similar situations. In the past, they have advocated positions that they were then forced to change. We had already been there'.

Abodi responded to the microphones of Radio Anch'io Sport on Rai Radio 1. 'I hope that the right tones are adopted and that we think of a general interest for an increasingly competitive Serie A. No reform has been achieved yet, but I hope it will happen in the coming months, without special interests and with the right institutional education. The document on financial controls to football and sport Giovanni Malagò got it from the federal president, a text that is not definitive. I too try to be careful about form, but the language used by the CONI president does not seem to me to be the most formal, taking into account the circumstances,' Abodi told Rai Radio 1. 'We are all at the service of the general interest. This has led the institutions to pose the problem of a third, independent, authoritative body. Not because Covisoc is not, but because it is not third, it is within the federal perimeter'.