ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th April, 2023) Officers from Italy's Guardia di Finanza on Wednesday night conducted searches and document seizures at the headquarters of prominent football clubs Roma, Lazio and Salernitana in connection with possible fraud in the purchase and sale of players, Italian media reported.
The searches are part of a large-scale investigation related to the transfer operations of professional football players from 2017 to 2021, Italian broadcaster RaiNews24 reported.
According to the report, two cases are being investigated in parallel: the prosecutor's office in the capital is looking into the details of the transfers of Roma's 11 players, while the prosecutor's office in the town of Tivoli is probing similar operations carried out by the management of Lazio and Salernitana clubs regarding seven players.
As a result, many executives of the three Italian clubs are under investigation, in particular, the president and vice president of Roma, Dan and Ryan Friedkin, and their predecessor in the position James Pallotta, as well as six other people, the newspaper reported. The defendants in the second case reportedly include Lazio President Claudio Lotito, Sporting Director Igli Tare and five other senior club officials.
The crimes alleged by investigators are related to financial fraud, which includes billing for non-existent transactions, as well as disseminating false corporate information, according to the report.
