Rocchi investigation: Inter is shocked, with Bologna and Milan Inzaghi lost two trophies

Yesterday Inter, at least for a while, experienced a classic day before the end of the championship, when you see that the goal is just a stone’s throw away: training, conference, bus trip, hotel. Usual liturgy, but this time broken in half by a piece of news that fell like a bolt of lightning in the woods: the entire group had nothing else in mind other than this blessed scudetto, then a notification appeared on their smartphones and everyone found out about the investigation involving the referee Gianluca Rocchi with the general accusation of sports fraud and of having chosen referees who were popular with the Nerazzurri themselves. An unexpected legal case at a time when the scent of the Scudetto is in the air: even if indirectly, it risks “tainting” Inter’s race towards the tricolor number 21. In reality, the facts in question mostly date back to last season, that of the great disappointment and zero titles brought home at the end of the Inzaghi era: precisely from this temporal circumstance arises the wonder of the club, taken aback by the affair, almost in disbelief. The facts contested against Rocchi and linked to the Nerazzurri club lead to matches that ended very badly for Simone’s team: in the matches in question of the 2024-25 season, one after the other, Bologna-Inter 1-0 on 20 April and Inter-Milan 0-3 on 23 April, the team severely hampered the race for the Scudetto and completely said goodbye to the Italian Cup and, therefore, the dreams of the Treble. She fell first at Easter against Vincenzo Italiano in a match much discussed in slow motion and then fell thunderously in the derby, no buts.

those doubts

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Hours of discussions, meetings, and the usual continuous contact with the American owners: the managers, led by president Beppe Marotta, who reached Turin before the team, analyzed the little information available, but in the end the Inter company chose not to produce an official statement to feed to the media. Even today in the Granata stadium there should be no interviews with any manager, also because the time is not yet considered ripe to make a statement. Informally, however, the club is decidedly shocked by the ongoing avalanche, but at the same time defines itself as calm about the next few days: no member has, in fact, received any notice of guarantee. Overall, the Nerazzurri’s doubts focus on some cornerstones of the same investigation, starting from the alleged “top secret” meeting held right at San Siro, during the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final on 2 April (Milan-Inter 1-1): on that occasion both the referee for the match in Bologna on the 20th and the second leg of the Coppa Italia match with the Devil on the 23rd was “agreed”: a packed Meazza is not the most discreet place in Milan, in bottom. Furthermore, the theory according to which Doveri himself would have been “unwelcome” by the Nerazzurri, but then deliberately chosen for the Cup derby (which Inter lost at home), so as to exclude his participation in the possible Cup final against one of Bologna and Empoli and in one of the five remaining championship matches at that point of the journey, is considered abstruse. In reality, Doveri had already refereed three of the Nerazzurri’s at that time (in Napoli-Inter 1-1 a month earlier there had actually been an alleged missed penalty on Dumfries which had caused the Nerazzurri to get upset). Furthermore, the same whistle would have curiously refereed the championship match that fell on the calendar just 3 days after the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final against Milan. It was April 5th, another disastrous date for Inzaghi’s championship: Inter in Parma were overtaken by Chivu himself, from 0-2 to 2-2.

black week

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Said of the magnifying glass on Inter-Milan 0-3 of the 2024-25 Italian Cup, the second leg semi-final again refereed by Doveri and which ended 0-3, this year the same “unwelcome” whistle certainly hasn’t disappeared from the Inter skies: it crossed the Nerazzurri 4 times and, after two successes for Inter, here are two direct clashes which were not very happy for Chivu (2-2 with Napoli at San Siro, knockout in the return derby with a goal of Estupinan). The other designation incriminated in the past season is that of Andrea Colombo, in Bologna-Inter on 20 April: the Nerazzurri certainly do not remember a happy Easter refereeing, especially in the red-hot recovery of Dall’Ara. Miranda’s throw, moved about ten meters ahead, had opened up Orsolini’s championship-killing scissors kick. Before that day, Colombo had refereed Inter five times: 5 wins, 19 goals scored and 2 conceded, while this year he was still there at the Stadium in the painful 4-3 defeat suffered by Tudor’s Juve. Obviously, in the Nerazzurri house, a passage in Domenico Rocca’s letter was not missed: in that complaint that triggered the case, the former assistant put down on paper his astonishment because in Inter-Roma in 2025 «the referee Gervasoni, supervisor of the day, did not “knock” on the Var to award a clear penalty kick in favor of Inter, a serious error that will most likely lead to the loss of the championship in favor of Napoli». It is the match of 27 April, the Inter-Roma 0-1 decisive for Conte’s tricolour, that of the missed penalty due to a handball by Ndicka on Bisseck. The case in question went sideways for Inzaghi’s team, and still today makes the average Nerazzurri fan think about it, also due to a VAR audio that had long disappeared. That match came exactly seven days after Bologna-Inter and four days after Inter-Milan in the Italian Cup: one of the least happy weeks of recent years, three defeats one after the other and goodbyes to dreams of glory.