Waiting to hear the defense of the Lazio captain Stefano Mauri, scheduled for today at 16 pm at the Cremona prosecutor's office, yesterday's interrogations uncovered other truths on the football betting affair, which is shaking the entire world of football and which yesterday even led the Prime Minister Mario Monti to hope for one break for “two or three years”. The world of football, in particular some Serie A presidents, was immediately indignant after the premier's words, but perhaps he would have done better to worry about what is emerging from the prosecutor Di Martino's investigation.
INTERROGATIONS – From the interrogations of the players Filippo Carobbio (who among other things yesterday essentially confirmed his version on the involvement of his former coach Antonio Conte in the Albinoleffe-Siena and Novara-Siena matches), Domenico Acerbis and Ivan Tisci, in fact, in addition to a series of confirmations and admissions on their respective personal responsibilities, the more than direct involvement of a owner of a Serie A club emerged: he is the president of Siena Massimo Mezzaroma, who allegedly asked his players to lose a game because he wanted to bet on his team's defeat. Of which to amply justify Monti's words.
BUFFON – Meanwhile, the goalkeeper of the national team Gigi Buffon also seems to have ended up in the crosshairs of the investigation. His position is absolutely extraneous, but the recent utterances on the legitimacy of assuming "accommodating" behavior in the last few league matches in cases where there is nothing at stake for one of the teams (“Better two wounded than one dead,” he said), aroused the curiosity of the police, who could hear Buffon if only to understand if it was a simple (clumsy) exit or if the black and white number one could be a person informed of the facts. Buffon reacted today at the press conference, giving his opinion in a somewhat polemical way towards the way in which the investigation was conducted: “There are judicial operations, and you know about it three or four months before – he said accusing magistrates and reporters -. One talks to the prosecutors and you know the content ten minutes later: it's a shame. Outside Coverciano there were cameras from 6 in the morning”. “I can't say what my heart and mind really think – added Buffon -. I had yet another confirmation that in the end people with a clear conscience and no skeletons in the closet cannot express their thoughts. I believe that the first thing to preserve is democracy, freedom: for this reason I accept the criticisms and take responsibility, but I'm sorry to hear lectures from you (the journalists, ed.). If for those sentences I will be heard in the prosecutor's office? I don't know, the bad thing is that things are always learned from the media and days before". The Juve goalkeeper also returned to the harsh words of Prime Minister Monti: “I don't allow myself to utter a word on the matter. We always talk about the Prime Minister, our highest authority, certainly a capable person with common sense. The best answer, which is the real one, was given by the president of the Football Federation (Fir, ed.)”.
NAPLES - The Prosecutor of Campania also falls on football betting, which joins those of Cremona and Bari to complete the picture of the round of distorted matches in the Italian football championships. A notice of conclusion of the preliminary investigations was in fact notified today to former footballers Matteo Gianello and Silvio Giusti as part of the investigation into criminal association and sports fraud, and the magistrates have already sent the documents to the FIGC. Gianello and Giusti are accused “of having carried out acts aimed at altering the result of the Sampdoria-Naples football match of 16 May 2010“. The investigations revealed that Gianello, at the request of Giusti and other people, made contact with some teammates, especially the defenders Paolo Cannavaro and Gianluca Grava, promising them a sum of money, quantified in a few dozen thousands of euros per person, if they had contributed to facilitating Sampdoria's victory. Both Cannavaro and Grava, questioned as persons informed of the facts, denied having received the illicit proposal.
CRISCITO AND BONUCCI – On the player front, however, the position of the two Azzurri Domenico Criscito and Leonardo Bonucci still holds the table. The first was reached by a notice of guarantee in the withdrawal of the national team in Coverciano and thus had to give up the call-up for the European Championships. The same treatment was not reserved for the Juventus defender, who is also under investigation but has not received official communication and will therefore leave for Poland. The accusations of his ex-mate at the time of Bari Andrea Masiello regarding various fake matches weigh on Bonucci. Paradoxically, the position of the Zenit St. Petersburg full-back, in Genoa at the time of the events, appears lighter, for which at the moment there seems to be no elements other than a photo that portrays him with teammate Beppe Sculli and some ultras and members of the criminal organization that engineered the bets. Compromising, but it is not yet clear whether it is random or not.
