Serie B, Reggina and Lecco towards exclusion: Covisoc rejects registration requests

ROME – The tension, for Reggina and Lecco, is very high. Because the risk of suffering a devastating blow is very high, not only for them but also for professional football, for the second Italian football championship and for the credibility of the football system. Around 10.30 pm, Covisoc, the control company for professional clubs, communicated to Reggina and Lecco the contestation of their registration in the Serie B championship. Translated: they seriously risk not being able to register for the championship, being excluded from it.

The Reggina case: the missing payment

For Covisoc, the Calabrians are to be rejected because the debt position of the club towards the state has not been resolved. The omitted payment of the 780,000 euros owed to the Treasury would be decisive. The club had long disputed the inconsistencies between the company code which helps companies in difficulty which allowed the club to postpone those payments, and the sports system which did not comply with those rules. But the sports judges have already blamed the company for the specificity of the rules of sport which must guarantee equal conditions for all participants in the championships.

Lecco, stadium documentation late

Even more grotesque is the case of Lecco. The club is up-to-date with payments and with the surety requested. The problem is the stadium. The postponement of the playoffs for promotion to Serie B has reduced the deadline for submitting the documentation to just 48 hours. And the club did not have, at the time it won B on the pitch, a facility with sufficient capacity for the category. In the application for registration in Serie B he had indicated the Euganeo di Padova as the stadium for his matches, the authorization of Padova football was correctly attached to the request. However, those of the Venetian Prefecture and Police Headquarters were missing. Arrived only on 21 June, i.e. a few hours after the deadline for registration, set at midnight on 20 June. A term that Covisoc has defined as “peremptory”. So the delay in delivering the permits really risks costing the company exclusion.

The Federal Council decides on 7 July, then the possible appeals

The decision will be up to the Federal Council on 7 July. Now the two clubs (and Siena, his request is also disputed) will have 5 days to present their defense brief to the Second Instance Commission. Who will then write his own report and send it to the Federal Council which on Friday will have to decide definitively on admission or exclusion from the championships. If the registrations were definitively rejected, the game would still not be over yet. Possible further appeals: to the guarantee college at Coni, for the last degree of sports justice. And then to the Tar (August 7) ​​and to the Council of State (August 29), i.e. the administrative courts. With the aim of stopping the championships to have their reasons recognized.