{"id":10318,"date":"2026-04-27T06:58:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T06:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/10318\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T06:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T06:58:18","slug":"italy-soccer-referee-chief-suspends-himself-over-sports-fraud-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/10318\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy Soccer Referee Chief Suspends Himself Over Sports Fraud Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The man in charge of assigning Serie A and B referees, Gianluca Rocchi, has suspended himself from the role with immediate effect while under investigation for sports fraud by Milan’s Public Prosecutor’s Office.<\/p>\n

VAR supervisor Andrea Gervasoni has taken similar action for the same reasons, and the investigation is looking into incidents during last season’s Serie A campaign.<\/p>\n

“This choice, painful, difficult but shared with my family, is intended to allow the legal proceedings to run their course properly, from which I am sure I will come out unscathed and stronger than before,” Rocchi’s statement to Italy’s referees’ association (AIA) said.<\/p>\n

Also in the news: Fans Visiting U.S. Get Stark Warning, $2 Million Tickets: 2026 FIFA World Cup Live Updates<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Italian media reports, Rocchi is accused of interfering with VAR protocols along with selecting referees preferable to Inter Milan.<\/p>\n

“We are learning everything from the media, so we are stunned by the declarations,” Inter President Giuseppe Marotta told Sky Sports before his side’s game at Torino on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“We do not have referees that we favour or are unfavourable towards, we are confident that we acted entirely fairly, which should reassure everyone.<\/p>\n

“We are safe in the knowledge that Inter are not involved in this situation and will not be involved in the future.”<\/p>\n

The news has sparked fears in Italy of another crisis, similar to the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal which saw Juventus stripped of the 2004-05 Serie A title and relegated to Serie B, with AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina also involved.<\/p>\n

Entertainment UpdatesThis article<\/a> originally appeared on HuffPost. Support fearless, unflinching journalism that holds power accountable and relentlessly pursues the truth. Become a HuffPost member today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost. The man in charge of assigning Serie A and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[675,7512,419,7513,7621,6074,7619,7622,119,5,170,237,175,7620,239,2893],"class_list":{"0":"post-10318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-ac-milan","9":"tag-andrea-gervasoni","10":"tag-fiorentina","11":"tag-gianluca-rocchi","12":"tag-giuseppe-marotta","13":"tag-huffpost","14":"tag-immediate-effect","15":"tag-independent-journalism","16":"tag-inter-milan","17":"tag-italy","18":"tag-juventus","19":"tag-lazio","20":"tag-milan","21":"tag-public-prosecutor39s-office","22":"tag-serie-a","23":"tag-torino"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}