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The Italian Referees Association (AIA) and more generally the leaders of Italian football are dealing with the arrest of Rosario D’Onofrio, until Saturday chief prosecutor of the AIA, accused by the Guardia di Finanza of being part of a network that distributed large quantities of marijuana and hashish between Spain and Italy. According to some wiretaps, he also played a role in intimidating and violent actions.
D’Onofrio was arrested in Milan as part of an investigation involving about forty people, 39 of whom are currently in prison. He is accused in particular of having acted as a courier for the organization in Lombardy: according to investigators, to do so he would also have used some of his acquaintances in the Italian army, of which he had been an officer.
In March 2020 he was in fact intercepted while making some deliveries between Milan and Brianza dressed in a real army uniform, so as to be able to circulate undisturbed despite the restrictions in the first period of the coronavirus pandemic in Italy. In May of the same year he was arrested for the first time just as he was sorting out forty kilos of marijuana.
He had since been placed under house arrest, but despite this he had retained the direction of the AIA National Arbitration Prosecutor’s Office – the office that oversees the work of football referees – received in the previous March. According to Republicattended the meetings of the prosecutor’s office thanks to the permission of the supervisory judge, and in this way he would have kept the ongoing proceedings against him hidden from the AIA.
Last October he was suspended from office pending trial by the Federcalcio (FIGC), but not for the aforementioned events, but for failure to investigate a disciplinary case. After his recent arrest, he finally resigned.
Now the AIA could take legal action against him, while the FIGC president Gabriele Gravina said he was “disconcerted”. From this story, many other doubts are inevitably arising that pull a part of the world of Italian football in the middle.
Former Serie A referee Piero Giacomelli, for example, believes that D’Onofrio is responsible for the early termination of his refereeing career, given that it was he who decided to suspend him for a reimbursement of expenses of 70 euros judged to be irregular. But in an interview with Republic, Giacomelli went beyond his case, accusing the AIA executives of having used D’Onofrio: «He was their political pick. By imposing sanctions he directed the careers of referees. Favoring some and punishing others, he decided at the table the rankings of merit. A dynamic that, brought to the political table for the elections of offices, could shift the votes of the awarded regional sections ».
D’Onofrio had entered the disciplinary section of the AIA in 2013, when the president of the association was still Marcello Nicchi, and in 2021 he was appointed head of the arbitration prosecutor by the president still in office, Alfredo Trentalange. Last July, while he was under house arrest, he had also received an award for having distinguished himself particularly in his activities as a prosecutor from the National Committee of the AIA.
The same association, on behalf of President Trentalange, says it has been “betrayed” by its former chief prosecutor and speaks of “serious damage to its image”. He also specified that he did not have investigative powers to verify the statements made by his associates. In the meantime, Gravina has asked on behalf of the FIGC “feedback on the methods of selecting the chief prosecutor”, given that the appointment is the exclusive responsibility of the AIA National Committee.
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