Genoa President Enrico Preziosi has denied linking Roma to the mafia following the game between the two on Sunday.
The Giallorossi emerged victorious from Marassi at the weekend after the Grifone were reduced to 10 men, and in the wake of the result Preziosi was quoted as implying that mafia corruption was involved in the result.
However the controversial patron has today sought to distance himself from those comments.
Genoa President Enrico Preziosi has denied linking Roma to the mafia following the game between the two on Sunday.
The Giallorossi emerged victorious from Marassi at the weekend after the Grifone were reduced to 10 men, and in the wake of the result Preziosi was quoted as implying that mafia corruption was involved in the result.
However the controversial patron has today sought to distance himself from those comments.
“I don’t know who put those words into my mouth,” Preziosi raged in an interview with Radio Radio.
“I was asked about the mafia, and I just replied that I didn’t know anything, and that’s not to say that I brought up God knows what.
“I just said, after the disappointment of the game that [referee Luca] Banti was a disaster, and I stand by that, we’ve lost 90% of the games where he’s refereed us.
“I have nothing against Roma, I have an excellent relationship with them, as I do will all the clubs and I don’t know why a journalist or newspaper has invented these words that I never said.
“I said that what is happening in Rome is a mess, and I hope it doesn’t extend even to football, but I didn’t mean that the mafia is in football, it’s the journalist who took it that way.
“Roma deserved to win, but if it had been 11 against 11 it would have been different. I never said the words that have been quoted.
“My only sin was to feed into an inference by not wanting to talk.
“The penalty was clear, but not so the sending off of [Mattia] Perin in my opinion, and that’s without even talking about the booking for [Diego] Perotti and Stefano Sturaro’s offside which changed the game.
“I hope they won’t send Banti to Genoa again.
“Roma played a good game, but with equal numbers on the pitch it would have been different, even if we might still have lost.
“Roma are a team that will punish you with the first chance they get.
“They’ve dropped points on the road too of course, but yesterday they didn’t steal anything.”