The Naples prosecutor’s office had asked for sentences for the defendants last November. Today managers, prosecutors and players have been acquitted for statute of limitations or acquitted because the fact does not exist. The first degree of the trial on football and invoices born from the investigation in 2016 led to 64 suspects and ended with this verdict. According to the investigators there was “an ingrained system” set up by 35 between Serie A and Serie B companies and a hundred managers, football players and sports agents. Twelve million euros for the disputed tax evasion. Accused the CEO of Milan Adrian Gallianithe patron of Naples Aurelio De Laurentiis, the president of Lazio Claudius Lotito to that of Fiorentina Andrew Della Valle (the latter acquitted for not having committed the crime). Also involved some of the most important players, especially Argentines: from Crespo to Denis, from Paletta to Pocho Lavezzi. Acquit them too. And then the prosecutors, with Alessandro Moggi at the forefront, the fulcrum of many of the market operations that ended up at the center of the Neapolitan prosecutor’s investigation and he too acquitted for statute of limitations in relation to some episodes, and because the fact does not exist for the other cases contested.
Alessandro jr was instead sentenced to one year, with suspended sentence, for an alleged episode of tax evasion linked to the cLavezzi’s transfer from Napoli to PSG on which his defense has already announced an appeal. The prosecutor had asked for 2 years and 8 months in prison for him. Tax evasion and issue and use of invoices for “subjectively” non-existent transactions, the crimes hypothesized at the time by the pool of magistrates. According to the indictment, the market operations were carried out through a system which on the one hand would have stolen money from the state coffers and on the other favored clubs, players and above all their agents. A theorem, say the defenders, denied by the sentence. The prosecutors – the hypothesis of the magistrates – would have fictitiously invoiced only to football clubs their performance, simulating that their intermediation was made in the exclusive interest of the clubs, while in fact protected the interests of the athletes. In other words, they worked for the players but earned money from the teams. The companies, for their part, would have taken advantage of this to fully deduct these expenses from taxable income, also benefiting from the VAT deduction relating to the “pseudo service” received exclusively. Among others, the transfers of Legrottaglie from Juventus to Milan, of Liverani from Fiorentina to Palermo, of Mutu from Juve to Fiorentina, of Immobile from Juve to Genoa, of Milito from Genoa to Inter and of Crespo from Chelsea to Inter. “I’m super calm, it’s all fluff“, commented the president of Napoli Aurelio De Laurentiis on the day of the news of the maxi investigation. Adriano Galliani, CEO of Milan at the time, did the same, speaking of an “absolutely marginal and unfounded affair”. Seven years after the first instance sentence scored a point in their favor.