Felice Belloli, the head of the national amateur league, allegedly made the comments during a meeting in March with the board of the league’s women’s department to discuss funding women’s football, La Gazzetta dello Sport reported.

“That’s enough, we can’t always talk about giving money to this handful of lesbians,” he allegedly said.

The comments were recorded in the minutes of the meeting, and sent to the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), which is mulling whether to open an investigation.

But Belloli has denied the allegations, telling Ansa that it needs to be proven that the comments came from him.

Valeria Fedeli, the vice president of Italy’s Senate took to Twitter to condemn the comments.

“Sexism and homophobia are a serious problem in football,” she wrote.

#Sessismo e #omofobia sono un problema grave del calcio #LegaCalcio #Belloli http://t.co/KLGFxrSdEW pic.twitter.com/sOIfZGT9KQ

— valeria fedeli (@valeriafedeli) May 15, 2015

Meanwhile, Luisa Rizzitelli, the president of Assist, the national association for female athletes, called on Belloli to immediately resign and for the football federation, as well as premier Matteo Renzi, to support the request.

“We don’t consider the word ‘lesbian’ to be offensive, but in this context it is unacceptable and homophobic,” she was quoted by Tutto Sport as saying.

“Obviously, the Italian women’s team winning bronze in the World Cup last year is not enough for him to respect athletes in this discipline, their coaches and managers.”