The Italian Judging Scandal Italy – An Update From The President IDSF

Is this another white wash answer to the Italian Scandal ?

The Italian Judging Scandal

Post GoSwissGo on Fri Mar 18, 2011 1:40 pm
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

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.



Italy – An Update From The President

IDSF In Italy – An Update From The President
The IDSF Presidium has been carefully monitoring recent developments in Italy following the appointment of a special administrator of the Italian IDSF Member Federazione Italiana Danza Sportiva (FIDS) by the authority of the Italian Olympic Committee or Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (CONI) of February 8, 2011.
The IDSF Managing Committee received a full copy of the Resolution of CONI appointing the administrator, and ordered a translation into English by a certified professional Translator. The Managing Committee has now had a full opportunity to review that translation and to make further enquiries. We attach for your information and records, two copies of the Resolution, in the original Italian and in the certified English translation.
We also provide to you an Executive Summary on pages 2 – 5.
Executive Summary
IDSF President Carlos Freitag has held several discussions with former FIDS President Ferruccio Galvagno, and met with Mr. Galvagno at Barcelona, Spain, for five hours on March 1, 2011. Mr. Galvagno gave a full and clear account of what has happened, including explaining in detail the background of the present situation in Italy.
During the period since February 8, we have received some messages about “serious accusations against FIDS and its President.” We have taken some time to report to you was because we wanted to investigate the situation to determine the facts. At no point have we received or discovered any facts or details about any misconduct by FIDS or Mr. Galvagno, other than the complaints in the CONI Resolution which states that FIDS has acted inconsistently with CONI’s policies by permitting people who are trainers and coaches to judge DanceSport competitions.
FIDS respects CONI’s jurisdiction and policies, but Mr. Galvagno advises us that FIDS had understood that CONI was prepared to make an exception for DanceSport adjudication because of the circumstances of our sport.
Many people in DanceSport have always openly recognized the potential conflict of interest in a system which permits coaches and trainers to judge. Only IDSF has taken formal and systematic steps to preserve, protect and promote impartiality in DanceSport judging, by establishing and regularly updating a clear and comprehensive IDSF Adjudicators’ Code of Conduct and Standards of Ethics, a copy of which is attached for your ease of reference.
Some time ago the IDSF Managing Committee considered trying to make and enforce a rule that judges cannot adjudicate competitions in which athletes who have taken lessons from them are competing. We have no stake in any judge’s or trainer’s views on this subject, and we concluded from an analysis of the sport and the people who are available to make the sport work, that any exclusion of trainers and coaches from judging is not possible from a practical standpoint. In all important competitions, it can be expected that at least one athlete will participate who was coached by one of the judges. Under such circumstances, no judge would be able to adjudicate which would effectively mean that IDSF and its Members would have to either (a) turn a blind eye to violations of the rule or (b) cancel most of our competitions; and we believed that the sporting world would understand that we cannot and will not do either of those things.


Letter to IDSF Member Federations March 18, 2011
Therefore, regardless of the position of CONI, the only practical alternative we can see is to vigorously enforce and regularly update our IDSF Adjudicators’ Code of Conduct and Standards of Ethics. This would include establishing direct legal relationship between IDSF and each IDSF adjudicator by an agreement in writing, and including vigorous in- competition and post-competition scrutiny of adjudicating results.
After careful analysis, the Managing Committee believes that the present problem in Italy has developed because some adjudicators associated with our rival federations have engaged in a coordinated public-relations campaign against our judges and FIDS in Italy, saying that a system in which judges are concurrently trainers will lead to subjectivity in adjudicating. Remarkably, we understand that these same adjudicators are also trainers and coaches, which leads to questions about their motives and their true agenda as other judging systems use adjudicators who are also trainers and coaches.
After he was appointed, CONI’s special administrator immediately changed the adjudication rules for DanceSport in Italy, requiring all judges have to sign an agreement that they will not judge any athlete from their team and that they have not given lessons to any athlete in the competition. Only a few Italian judges are able to sign this agreement.
This campaign against FIDS, from what we know, has been promoted vigorously by WDC based on the WDC campaign slogan “Freedom To Dance”. The campaign started about two years ago by Mr. Pregnolato who was formerly a responsible official inside FIDS and served as head of their academy. His position was terminated by FIDS, and subsequently Mr. Pregnolato was very critical of FIDS and Mr. Galvagno. We have received information that a group which shares Mr. Pregnolato’s opinions started a public relations campaign against FIDS and Galvagno in Italy and have spent large sums of money on publishing their opinions in important Italian media and TV as well as sending numerous letters to CONI complaining about the FIDS judging system and the fact that FIDS would not tolerate FIDS athletes supporting some major competitions in England.
So in our view, the truth is more basic. The concern of the Italian critics is not that Italian DanceSport judges are also trainers, but they try to weaken FIDS. It would appear that their real complaint is that under the long- recognized doctrine of Freedom of Association, FIDS has begun to progressively enforce its rule that its athletes cannot participate in competitions which are not registered in the IDSF system, including WDC’s largest and most profitable competitions, which are produced in England.


Letter to IDSF Member Federations March 18, 2011
It would seem that some WDC Members have, not too surprisingly, begun to lose business.
In addition, as you know, after repeated unsuccessful attempts to reach an agreement with WDC, IDSF followed the advice of IDSF’s late Ambassador- At-Large, Juan Antonio Samaranch, to establish our own IDSF Professional Division or “PD”. As one of our largest and most prominently successful members FIDS was the leader in this difficult process, and FIDS President Ferruccio Galvagno was person who was its most vocal and visible spokesman from 2006 until its creation. As a result Mr. Galvagno was the single person who was most identified with these initiatives.
IDSF finalized the creation of the PD at our 2010 Annual General Meeting last June. As a result, in a short time we will be able to build up a strong professional competition field in Standard and Latin DanceSport.
WDC is aware of this and also knows that the current IDSF World Champions and some other top DanceSport athletes are no longer “changing” to the WDC but remain with IDSF to compete in the IDSF Professional Division.
WDC is not pleased with this development and some of their athletes and trainers have sent letters to the newspapers in Italy and to CONI, emphasizing their complaint that that FIDS is not allowing Italian athletes to go to the WDC’s most important competitions in England.
As a result of their campaign to CONI, CONI has taken action against FIDS in order to investigate something which is actually a political diversion and a commercial tactic by WDC’s Italian judges, who are also dancing businesspeople.
In answer to our questions, Mr. Galvagno denies all claims that either he or FIDS has done anything wrong, but in a remarkable gesture, he has not tried to oppose CONI’s investigation but rather in agreement with the President of CONI, Mr. Gianni Petrucci, he voluntarily resigned as President, encourages CONI’s work, and offered to cooperate fully with the investigations.
CONI has asked the highly-respected Italian sport administrator and official Dr. Luca Pancalli to serve as CONI’s commissioner inside FIDS, until they can determine the facts. Mr. Galvagno has publicly promised to cooperate fully with Mr. Pancalli.
We believe that an Italian group has seriously misled CONI about our sport. We respect CONI and we understand that it must step in where the reputation of sport is called into question. We are part of the same IOC family as CONI and we are grateful for their work, but in this matter, we are


Letter to IDSF Member Federations March 18, 2011
of the strong opinion that CONI has been misinformed and misled about the judging of DanceSport and that information has been manipulated for purposes that work against sport in Italy.
We have written to the CONI-appointed administrator, Dr. Pancalli, to request a meeting with him to discuss with him the allegations against FIDS and DanceSport, and to inform him fully about what we believe is the underlying political and commercial basis for the complaints against FIDS in Italy.
We have also advised the President of SportAccord, Mr. Hein Verbruggen, and the President of ARISF, Mr. Jan Fransoo, of the situation, in view of the potential dangers to other sports.
We will inform you about further developments as they occur. However, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or concerns.

Very interesting to read the translation of the CONI Resolution



A true and correct copy of
the original
Office for Collective
Bodies
Alessandro Cherubini
[Signature]

COMITATO OLIMPICO NAZIONALE ITALIANO

[Italian National Olympic Committee]

RESOLUTION OF THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE

No. 10

RE: Nomination of Extraordinary Member of the Italian DanceSport Association

Implementation:

Knowledge:

Delivered on:

THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE

AS PER Article 7, Item 2, Letter f) of D.Lgs.1 No. 242 of 23rd July 1999 and subsequent amendments
and supplements which among the functions of the National Committee provides for the proposal to
the National Committee of the appointment of an external Commissioner of the National Sports
Associations or the Associated Sports Disciplines, in the event of serious irregularities in management
or of serious breaches of Sports Regulations by the Managing Bodies, or rather in the event of the
established inability of operation of same or in the event in which the prescribed requirements have
not been observed for the purpose of ensuring normal commencement and execution of National
Sports competitions;
Resolution No. 10

Decreto legislative = Legislative Decree

Coni

-2 -
AS PER Article 7, Item 5, Letter f) of the CONI Constitution which highlights the powers of the
National Committee to propose the appointment of an external Commissioner of the National Sports
Associations in the cases indicated by the aforesaid D.Lgs.2 No. 242/99, as well as in the event that
the National Sports Associations have not adopted the prescribed requirements or the ad acta3
appointment of an external Commissioner for the relevant internal formal statements, in order to
ensure the normal execution of national sports competitions;

TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION that numerous complaints have reached the Office of the Chairman
of CONI from athletes, of a high competitive level, already holding a F.I.D.S.4 membership card, who
have represented Italy in DanceSport, achieving results of considerable significance, who all report a
management by the Chairman of F.I.D.S. marked by conflict in continuous disagreement with
national and international representatives, as well as a management not consistent with the general
interests of the Sport of DanceSport, matters all of which – as per the complaints – would have
involved the resignation from F.I.D.S. of the above athletes;

HAVING NOTED that both in the above complaints and in other complaints forwarded to the Federal
Prosecutor of F.I.D.S., and after having gathered information from the Association, it was found that
all Competition Judges are also concurrently Instructors, Trainers or Coaches with their own athletes
belonging to various associations;

HAVING NOTED in particular that this last circumstance expressly violates the Fundamental
Principles of the Constitutions of the National Sporting Associations as deliberated by the National
Committee of CONI, and in particular, the principle of incompatibility between the function of
adjudicator and that of coach;

HAVING NOTED that this principle of incompatibility is also ratified by Article 80 of the F.I.D.A.S.
Constitution which provides that the concurrent status of coach or instructor and that of contest
official is incompatible;

HAVING NOTED that Article 80, in confirmation of the above, provides for the obligation to establish
the criteria and procedures the classification of membership card holders as sports coaches or
contest officials through the specialist regulations of F.I.D.S.;

HAVING NOTED that F.I.D.S. forwarded to CONI on 28th September 2010 a copy of the “National
Specialist Management Regulations, Specialist Sector and of the Adjudicator’s Sector” in response to
which on 23rd December 2010 the offices of CONI expressed observations to which a reply has not
yet been received, and as a result of this CONI have not approved the regulations.

HAVING NOTED in the circumstances that the provisions quoted in Article 80 of the F.I.D.S.
Constitution have not been implemented;

Decreto legislative = Legislative Decree
To the archives, i.e. consider the matter as closed
4
Federazione Italiana Danza Sportiva = Italian DanceSport Association

A true and correct copy of
the original
Office for Collective
Bodies
Alessandro Cherubini
[Signature]

-3 -
HAVING NOTED that the aforesaid situation on the one hand brings about a violation of the quoted
principle of incompatibility and on the other hand creates – as reported in the above mentioned
complaints – the clear violation of any principle of impartiality or transparency - as also ratified by
Articles 23, Item 1b and 33, Item 3 of the CONI Constitution, is cause for doubts of honesty and
guarantee regarding the normal execution of national sporting competitions;

HAVING NOTED that the said breach should have involved – as provided by quoted Article 7, Item 5,
letter f) of the CONI Constitution - prescribed requirements for the purpose of avoiding the
abovementioned cases of incompatibility, in order to guarantee normal execution of national sports
competitions;

HAVING NOTED also that CONI with letter dated 22nd December 2010 had put forward to the
Chairman of F.I.D.S. a request for documentary clarification with reference to the administrative
investigation which took place at the association;

HAVING NOTED that in its administrative activity and comments with regard to same the National
Committee has already considered these matters in the meetings of 22nd July 2010 and 14th October
2010, and that further to the provisions set out during the meeting of 14th October 2010, and of the
partial clarifications not considered sufficient by the subsequent National Committee of 16th
December 2010, the letter dated 22nd December 2010 has been forwarded to the Chairman of F.I.D.S.
requesting further clarification in writing.

HAVING NOTED that to the above mentioned letter of 22nd December 2010 there has been no reply
as noted in the letter of 28th January 2011 from the General Secretary of CONI, who has also advised
the Chairman of F.I.D.S. both that CONI had received a series of complaint reports having as their
object the sports coach management of the Association and that further to complaint reports (also
forwarded to CONI) the Federal Prosecutor had declared his intention to carry out the customary
investigations and that on the matters reported had lodged report with the Office of the Public
Prosecutor of the Italian Republic at the Court of Rimini.

HAVING NOTED that on 7th February a note from the Secretary General of F.I.D.S. was received with
attached Report of same date from the Federal Prosecutor who – reaffirming the principle of non
culpability until the result of the disciplinary procedure – has anticipated objections with regard to
the Federal Chairman, two Federal Members, various Federal Managers, various Competition Judges,
Associations and Athletes, with reference to possible breaches of the principles of loyalty, honesty
and integrity within the area of sporting events;

HAVING CONSIDERED that this disciplinary procedure appears to implicate all federal members;

HAVING NOTED that, as advised by the General Secretary of the Association by a letter dated 7th
February 2011, on the occasion of the meeting of the Federal Committee of F.I.D.S. of 6th February
2011, on the conclusion of works of the Extraordinary Assembly, the Federal Chairman

Coni

A true and correct copy of
the original
Office for Collective
Bodies
Alessandro Cherubini
[Signature]

Mr Ferruccio Galvagno tendered his resignation from the position and, consequently, in accordance
with Article 32 of the Constitution of F.I.D.S. the entire Federal Committee ceased to exist;

HAVING NOTED again from the above mentioned letter from the General Secretary which indicates
that at the meeting of the 6th February 2011, the Federal Committee, in accordance with Article 33 of
the Federal Constitution, resolved to call an Extraordinary Election Meeting on the 26th day of March
2011;

HAVING CONSIDERED that the above mentioned matters embody serious irregularities in
management and serious breaches of sporting regulations as well as a confirmed non-adoption on
the part of the Association of statutory and/or prescribed regulations, which assume an obvious
significance for the essential required guarantee to regulate the execution of national sporting
competitions;

HAVING NOTED that the above mentioned situations obviously suggest, before arriving at renewal of
the Federal Bodies, the regularization of the management of administration of the Association, as
well as adoption of measures – by approval of any statutory and/or prescribed regulations – with the
goal of reducing any issue of incompatibility between Competition Judges and Instructors and
Federal Coaches;

HAVING NOTED that the above mentioned activity will involve the need to adopt on the part of the
Association of an independent Sector for Competition Judges, in order to comply with the basic
principle of every sporting activity of impartiality and transparency;

HAVING CONSIDERED therefore that the provisions for convocation of the Meeting adopted by the
Federal Committee in the above meeting of 5th February 2011 must be revoked;

HAVING CONSIDERED that the above situation can be fully ascribed to the provisions as per Article 7,
item 5, letter r), of the CONI Constitution, determining the conditions for an immediate intervention
by the Committee;

HAVING NOTED that Luca Pancalli (lawyer) who is in possession of the required requisites, declared
his availability to undertake the position of Extraordinary Committee Member with F.I.D.S.;

to nominate as its Extraordinary Committee Member to the Italian DanceSport Association lawyer
Luca Pancalli, Vice-Chairman of CONI, so that with all the powers of the Chairman, Federal
Committee and of the Committee of the Chairman’s Office arranges – with immediate effect – he
may guarantee the normal management of federal activities adopting, as highlighted above, all the
necessary measures with new statutory and/or prescribed regulations for the purpose of

Coni

A true and correct copy of
the original
Office for Collective
Bodies
Alessandro Cherubini
[Signature]

regularizing the position of Competition Judges, and subsequent convocation and conducting of the
Extraordinary Meeting for the reconstitution of Federal Bodies;

The Committee Member may be assisted by Deputy Committee Members to be nominated by CONI,
by agreement with the Committee Member.

The National Committee appoints the Chairman of CONI for possible nomination of Deputy
Committee Members.

The Committee Member’s term of office will expire on reconstitution of the Federal Bodies, within
180 days from the date of ratification of this resolution by the National Committee of CONI.

This resolution will be subjected to ratification by the National Committee in accordance with Article
7, item 5 letter r) of the CONI Constitution.

SECRETARY
[Signed Raffaele Pagnozzi]

I hereby certify this to be a true and
accurate translation from Italian into
English of the copy before me,
completed to the best of my
knowledge and ability:
MARIA ANTONIETTA SCHIAVONE
NAATI Accredited Translator
- Italian <-> English NAATI No. 4368

MARIA ANTONIETTA SCHIAVONE
Apartment 56, The Edge
Apartments
8 Hordern Street
Victoria Park WA 6100

Data: 18 March 2011

I believe it is important to remember that Mr Alberto Pregnalato is not a member of the Italian Dance Council the WDC Member in Italy. He is a member of FIDS and is an IDSF Licensed Adjudicator and IDSF Licensed Chairman.
Well he is shown as such on the new IDSF website.

It is my opinion that the Rimini Federal Prosecutor would not start an investigation with receiving compelling material (evidence) to justify a Police investigation.

My own personal feeling is that now a Police investigation is underway it would be better for IDSF to wait for the result rather than issuing "updates" and making allegations against WDC which do not stand close scrutiny.