Siena have accepted a plea bargain to start the season from -6 points, but President Massimo Mezzaroma says “we are paying for a single rotten apple.”
Siena have accepted a plea bargain to start the season from -6 points, but President Massimo Mezzaroma says “we are paying for a single rotten apple.”
The club was charged with indirect responsibility for sporting fraud after one of their players, Filippo Carobbio, confessed to his part in a betting scandal.
“We are paying for a single rotten apple in our midst,” wrote President Mezzaroma on the official Siena website.
“The plea bargain was accepted as a technical formula that will allow us to close the sporting trial and turn over a new leaf.
“Now this penalty has to become an extra motivation for everyone. We will prove on the field that we deserve to stay in Serie A even with this initial weight holding us back, thanks to our values and capacity to overcome difficulties.
“We will be even more united to defend the Serie A dream.”
Carobbio is also the figure who named Antonio Conte and claimed the then-Siena Coach had spoken in a team meeting of ‘agreed’ results in two games.
The other players in that meeting who testified all denied Conte ever said this, which is why the charge was reduced from sporting fraud to simply failing to alert authorities to an attempted fix.