The Italian Judging Scandal

First there was a long article in a weekly magazine L'Espresso

Now a Milan Newspaper on 19th February has published an article.

This is a Google Language Translation.

Source: daily, Libero ', Milano
Date of Article: 19 February 2011
Category: timeliness, page 19

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Legend:
CONI (Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano) = Olympic organization: care for the development and promotion of sport in Italy
FIDS (Federazione Italiana Danza Sportiva) = pendant to STSV in Switzerland

determines the winner even before the start of the tournament: Investigation in the FIDS: Scandal at the dance championships
Barbara Romano

Can you win a tournament before the match even starts? In Rimini, it happened. In the Italian Dance Sport Championships 2010, the most important annual event of the sector: 150,000 visitors, 32,000 dancers, 150 million € revenue, 11 days of tournaments. For nothing. Since everything was already decided. The results of the tournaments have been agreed and implemented at meetings of the judges. How did this happen? By convincing the judges with money and prestige and promise of future orders as well as new clubs. Those who wanted to add were not, even blackmail by threatening them not scoring more jobs to get and to punish "their" dancers.
The scandal was due to a charge of Alberto Pregnolato, 10 times Italian Champion Ballroom and for several years in the active FIDS dancesport expert from Padova are discovered, the investigation has even caused by CONI. He became aware of the discrepancies, because the results of the tournaments were consistent not with the shows / performances of dancers. Through the first secret project, clean dance sport 'could an investigation be started, which provided the evidence in the championships for the long-held suspicion: intimidation / blackmail the judges, circulating note, corrupt members of the Union. How could these machinations are revealed? Through years of association work could exploit familiar contacts within the adjudicators and judges inject their own Sun in the jury of the championship. There were informal meetings prior to the tournament for the judges, the result lists to pass. These meetings were convened by FIDS some consultants, such Nicola Cuocci example, currently under investigation for sporting fraud. There are testimonies, and audio and video evidence, which show how some judges before the tournament finals and the compilation of the rankings were to each other. And the evidence also shows how judges, who initially refused despite promises of new work orders to participate, received threats and were finally forced to collaborate. This evidence and witness statements currently being truly bring the background of the Italian mafia dance sport to light. The purpose of the whole? to have dancers of certain coaches to win the power and importance of these coaches stepped up. But these illegal activities were in accordance Pregnolato an even more important purpose: to create an association in the association. The manipulation of the results of this tournament was the best way to gain more power can be. In practice, it was a question about a hundred trusted advisers, judges and officials from all FIDS select members with the pledge of future work orders. The ultimate goal of the association in the federation was to extract tens of millions of euros from the allocation of clubs in these selected persons. The advocacy of the Republic of Rimini has called for an inquiry. On 4 January 2011 has had to open the federal prosecutor Fabio Pennisi due to the extremely serious charges, the study mentioned by the court in Rimini, which analyzes current full range of these mafia-style machination. The prosecution has reached such an extent that the Board of FIDS can not defend himself against the allegations, because they appear to be completely involved. The evidence was so obvious and numerous, even to have provoked the resignation of the President of the FIDS Association, Ferruccio Galvagno, 6 February 2011 . Galvagno also is being investigated under this sporting fraud. Two days after the resignation the President of CONI, the organization has decided to launch a commission for the association to make with the transfer of the case to the Vice President of CONI, Luca Pancalli. The indictment was based on serious and specific reasons, said Gianni Petrucci, the president of CONI. Harsh words for the detection of irregularities in the Italian dancing. And according to internal sources of the court in Rimini, we are just at the beginning of the investigation.

Link to original article.
http://www.danzesportsardegna.info/rassegna/2011/02feb/19_feb.htm.