Former Castel di Sangro President – and recent FIGC Presidential candidate – Gabriele Gravina denied the “defamation” that he helped fix Serie B games.
The scandal had already erupted in a book by American writer Joe McGinnis, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, when he stayed with the team at the time of their first Serie B campaign.
Former Castel di Sangro President – and recent FIGC Presidential candidate – Gabriele Gravina denied the “defamation” that he helped fix Serie B games.
The scandal had already erupted in a book by American writer Joe McGinnis, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, when he stayed with the team at the time of their first Serie B campaign.
It re-emerged last night when La7 television show Non e l’Arena aired two clips of players confessing to the fix of a Serie B match with Bari in June 1997, noting it was "on the orders" of the club.
“Our achievements that season were down to a tough and absolutely fair competition,” announced Gravina in a statement to news agency Ansa.
“Today people want to throw mud at memories that over 20 years have been artfully reconstructed and built on a castle of allegations, aimed only at discrediting a clean and exciting page in the Italian football history books.
“The really strange thing here is the timing. These events were already evaluated by the authorities, who condemned the writer Joe McGinnis for this analogous defamation.”
McGinnis died of prostate cancer in March 2014, aged 71.