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Matthew Vella
No inquiries have yet been made with the Lotteries and Gaming Authority over the scandal that has rocked Juventus FC and the rest of the Italian Serie A league over match-fixing.
Malta is the host of one of the online gaming sites through which Juventus and Italian national goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon placed millions on bets on championship football games.
LGA chief executive Mario Galea said Italian authorities had made no contact yet with the authority over the betting transactions. He pointed out that the internet site, Bet Class, was one of the several hundreds which were blacklisted by the Italian authorities following a budget measure to prohibit Italian gamers from using foreign internet gaming sites.
“The blackout meant that nobody in Italy was supposed to be using that website. For the time being, no contacts have been made with us,” Galea said.
Italy’s first-choice keeper Gianluigi Buffon has already been questioned by Turin magistrates after he voluntarily approached the authorities to be questioned over alleged bets in which his money was used.
In a statement by Bet Class Ltd, lawyer Marco Ripamonti said the gaming company will give out the list of the professional footballers amongst its users, adding that from its analysis of betting records, “nothing that can be regarded as abnormal or suspicious”.
Italian investigators are already looking into betting transactions by four football players, and will be requesting permission to view the Bet Class’s records.
Italian keeper Buffon has admitted placing bets, claiming they were limited to just foreign soccer, tennis and horses. He was identified at the end of a line of bookmakers after banking authorities referred multi-million euro transfers to the anti-money laundering authorities.
Bookmaker Paolo Pelizzoni would collect millions from Alessandro Brignoli, a storekeeper with Italian foodstuff giant Parmalat, to bet on the UK online site Eurobet. Buffon allegedly passed on some EUR2 million to Brignoli to place the bets.
When banks referred the multi-million transfers to the authorities, suspecting money laundering, it was first found that the transfers were actually clean.
For months they monitored the transactions, until they referred the case to the Italian police and the Torino magistrature. There they discovered the channels used by football players who played on Eurobet, or the Maltese gaming site Bet Class.
Prosecutors are investigating top clubs, referees and officials for suspected match-fixing in one of the biggest scandals to hit Italy since the 1980s. Resignations have followed, with the Italian football federation president and vice-president Franco Carraro and Innocenzo Mazzini, and the entire Juventus board stepping down.
Referee Massimo De Santis, who will take part in next month’s World Cup in Germany, is also being investigated in the probe.
Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi and CEO Antonio Giraudo are at the centre of the scandal, triggered by the publication of telephone conversations of them discussing refereeing appointments with senior federation officials.
Phone conversations were published revealing that Carraro’s officials and Juventus chief Luciano Moggi had discussed refereeing appointments, exposing the latter talking about assigning referees for specific Seria A and Champions League matches.
If Juventus are to be found guilty of fraud, they could face demotion to Italy’s second division Serie B, following the fate of AC Milan and Lazio which were demoted in 1980 following a match-fixing and illegal gambling investigation.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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