Soccer-Italian prosecutors request to drop sports fraud case against referee chief


Soccer Football - Serie A - Sampdoria v Juventus - Stadio Comunale Luigi Ferraris, Genoa Italy - December 18, 2019 Reeree Gianluca Rocchi REUTERS/Jennifer Lorenzini

July 15 (Reuters) - Milan ⁠prosecutors have requested that a sports ⁠fraud case against Gianluca Rocchi, the ‌former referee designator for Italy's Serie A and Serie B, be dismissed, Italian news agency ANSA reported on ​Wednesday.

Rocchi, who was responsible for ⁠appointing referees in ⁠Italy's top two divisions, had been investigated on ⁠suspicion ‌of complicity in sporting fraud over referee assignments for four matches, ⁠including Torino's Serie A game against Inter ​Milan ‌in the recently concluded season.

He suspended himself ⁠from the ​role in April, saying it would "allow the legal proceedings to run their course properly, from ⁠which I am sure I ​will come out unscathed".

According to ANSA, prosecutors concluded after a two-year inquiry that there was ⁠no evidence of match-fixing, saying they did not "identify a structured system aimed at interfering with appointments".

However, they have forwarded the case ​documents to the sports ⁠justice authorities and the Italian Olympic Committee's General ​Prosecutor's Office to assess ‌whether any disciplinary breaches may ​have occurred.

(Reporting by Karan Prashant Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Alison Williams)

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