FIGC chief Gabriele Gravina and Lega Serie A President Antonio Di Siervo are confident they can get the Minister for Sport to ‘modify’ his proposed new agency for financial checks on clubs.
The plan was announced amid huge controversy by Minister for Sport Andrea Abodi, including threats that it would represent Government interference in sport and could therefore see Italian teams excluded from tournaments.
Currently, there is an agency called the COVISOC that checks the financial health and stability of all football clubs before a season kicks off.
The Government is proposing to set up its own new agency that would perform the same checks and balances, using a legal decree.
This afternoon, Abodi met with several figures including the CONI President Giovanni Malagò, Lega Serie A chief Di Siervo, FIGC President Gravina and the heads of professional basketball in Italy too.
According to reports, they managed to at least convince Minister for Sport Abodi to postpone the introduction of the new decree so it will not be in next week’s proposal.
Serie A and Italian football fight new agency proposal
“We asked the Government to help us to stabilise some stricter principles for the COVISOC to stick to, so that we can still keep the COVISOC,” Gravina told reporters.
“The atmosphere of discussions was calm and constructive. We reaffirmed our objective to give the whole sporting system economic stability, but we are against the introduction of Government authorities taking an active role.
“The COVISOC worked very well over the last few years and we had only two appeals accepted of over 200 clubs excluded from professional leagues.”