Police raid 12 soccer clubs in betting probe

Police today raided the headquarters of 12 Italian soccer clubs, including four from Italy’s top league, as part of a nationwide investigation into an alleged betting scandal masterminded by the Neapolitan Camorra crime organisation.

The investigation stemmed from telephone taps suggesting attempts to fix matches in Italy’s three top leagues, Italian news reports said.

Thirteen people, including five players and a convicted Camorra mafia boss, were being investigated in the case, the ANSA news agency said.

They faced possible charges of criminal association and sports fraud, ANSA said.

Italy’s anti-mafia police carried out the raids in 14 cities and seized documents and files from 12 club offices, according to a statement from AC Siena, one of the top-tier Serie A clubs visited.

The offices of prosecutors Filippo Beatrice and Giuseppe Narducci, who are leading the investigation, said they could not confirm the reports of an ongoing investigation.

A tapped telephone conversation suggested that results of some matches of the A, B and C leagues on April 18 could have been fixed to the advantage of illegal punters, ANSA reported.

The Serie A clubs visited by police early Tuesday were Siena, Chievo Verona, Lecce and Reggina.

Siena president Paolo De Luca confirmed that documents were seized at his club. But he said he was calm because it was the club that had been wronged. News reports said three players of Siena were among the 13 people served notices that they were under investigation.

Reggina president Lillo Foti denied any involvement in the scam and stressed that only some specific documents had been seized. He said the club itself had not been put under investigation and was merely informed about the probe.

The Italian soccer federation said in an official communique that it was unaware of the alleged scandal and that it opened a parallel investigation on the basis of information received from the Naples prosecutors.

In addition to the four Serie A clubs, the other clubs being investigated are: Ascoli, Catanzaro, Crotone, Fermana, Lumezzane, Piacenza and Sassari Thorres and Taranto, ANSA said.

Today’s investigation was reminiscent of a sensational scandal of illegal betting and fixed matches that shook Italian soccer in 1980, leading to the arrest of 11 players.

All players were later acquitted. However the independent soccer tribunal later penalised seven clubs, including AC Milan and Lazio, and handed down long suspensions for 20 players, including Italy’s 1982 World Cup hero Paolo Rossi.