At the end of an extraordinary meeting convened this Monday by the Lega Serie A, the twenty clubs of the Italian championship “unanimously expressed their opposition to the proposal to create a government agency for the economic and financial supervision of professional sports clubs”.
“The clubs demand the autonomy of the sports system in relation to politics (…) and have once again reiterated the need to move towards total autonomy of the Lega Serie A within the sports system,” indicated the Italian League in a press release.
Italian football officials point out that there already exists within the Italian Federation (FIGC) a body, Covisoc for the monitoring commission of professional football clubs, responsible for monitoring the accounts of Serie A clubs. “This project is disrespectful to our authorities. It suddenly becomes clear that Covisoc would no longer be independent” if the government’s project goes through to the end, warned the president of the FIGC, Gabriele Gravina, on Monday.
The Italian government wants to set up an agency for the economic and financial supervision of professional sports clubs, targeting football and basketball in particular. The Minister of Sports Andrea Abodi justified this Monday on Rai Radio 1 the creation of this body by recalling that “100 million euros in taxes and contributions were not paid by the clubs of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd divisions just over the last 18-24 months.”
“We are not saying that Covisoc is not reliable. It is said that there is always room for improvement in terms of financial control, he added before continuing. There will be no impact on the allocation of licenses for the championships, all this will remain in the hands of the FIGC. The Italian basketball authorities, led by the Italian Federation and Professional League, have also expressed their opposition to this project which, according to them, “presents a risk for (their) autonomy”.