The Minister formally asked CONI and the National Anti-Corruption Authority to start a review to clarify the application of the rules on ‘pantouflage’ in relation to top positions in the sports system
The written response from the Minister for Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodi, to the parliamentary question presented on 20 May by Lega senator Roberto Marti, President of the 7th Culture Commission of the Senate, arrived in the early afternoon today. Here we read that the minister “formally asked CONI and the National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC) to start a verification to clarify the application of the rules on ‘pantouflage’ in relation to the top positions of the sports system. The decision was taken with the aim of acquiring, as requested by the questioner, every useful element to guarantee timely legal certainty, transparency and protection of the integrity of the Italian sports system”.
THE RULE It should be noted that, while Marti’s question made explicit reference to the alleged ineligibility of candidate Giovanni Malagò as federal president, the minister presented a generic request for clarification in the sporting field, also to avoid future doubts. To avoid conflicts of interest, in the Italian legal system the prohibition of “pantouflage” is regulated by law 190/2012, the so-called Severino law, with the aim of reducing the risks of corruption. In practice, the rules provide that at the end of the public employment relationship and for the following three years, the former employee cannot carry out professional activity “for those private entities receiving the same powers exercised by him on behalf of the public administration”. A circumstance that according to many experts, including the former president of the ANAC and sports law expert Sergio Santoro interviewed by the Gazzetta, does not exist in the case of Malagò who has always said he is “very calm” about this.