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FOOTBALL

‘Indescribable violence’ as football fans torch club president’s cars

Two cars belonging to the president of Serie A strugglers Pescara were set alight in an arson attack blamed Tuesday on hardline "ultra" fans upset at the club's poor form.

'Indescribable violence' as football fans torch club president's cars
A recent match between Pescara and Juventus.Photo: AFP

President Daniele Sebastiani said he planned to quit the crisis club after a Smart car and an SUV were torched, according to reports. Police were alerted by neighbours who saw one of the vehicles engulfed in flames.

Serie A condemned the “indescribable acts of violence” and Sebastiani said he had “had enough” and would quit at the end of the season, according to Il Centro newspaper.

“We hope those responsible are brought to justice as soon as possible. Intimidation or violence is not to be tolerated, especially by a president who has always run his club with immense passion and commitment,” said a league statement.

Police in Pescara are studying closed circuit television cameras near the scene following the incident.

Pescara, promoted to Italy's top flight this season, have struggled to climb their way out of the relegation zone since the start of the campaign.

Sebastiani offered to resign last week to spare coach Massimo Oddo the axe and on Tuesday went a step further.

“That's it, I've had enough,” he was reported as saying by Il Centro. “I will leave the club at the end of the season.”

It is not the first time fans have gone to extreme measures to express their ire at Oddo's side, who sit bottom of the table on nine points with just one win and six draws from 23 games.

Graffiti insulting Sebastiani appeared on the walls of the club's Adriatico stadium on Monday following a 6-2 hammering by Lazio.

Pescara have shipped a league-leading tally of 50 goals so far and are 13 points from the safety zone.

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CRIME

Italy has most recovery fund fraud cases in EU, report finds

Italy is conducting more investigations into alleged fraud of funds from the EU post-Covid fund and has higher estimated losses than any other country, the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) said.

Italy has most recovery fund fraud cases in EU, report finds

The EPPO reportedly placed Italy under special surveillance measures following findings that 179 out of a total of 206 investigations into alleged fraud of funds through the NextGenerationEU programme were in Italy, news agency Ansa reported.

Overall, Italy also had the highest amount of estimated damage to the EU budget related to active investigations into alleged fraud and financial wrongdoing of all types, the EPPO said in its annual report published on Friday.

The findings were published after a major international police investigation into fraud of EU recovery funds on Thursday, in which police seized 600 million euros’ worth of assets, including luxury villas and supercars, in northern Italy.

The European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, established to help countries bounce back from the economic blow dealt by the Covid pandemic, is worth more than 800 billion euros, financed in large part through common EU borrowing.

READ ALSO: ‘It would be a disaster’: Is Italy at risk of losing EU recovery funds?

Italy has been the largest beneficiary, awarded 194.4 billion euros through a combination of grants and loans – but there have long been warnings from law enforcement that Covid recovery funding would be targeted by organised crime groups.

2023 was reportedly the first year in which EU financial bodies had conducted audits into the use of funds under the NextGenerationEU program, of which the Recovery Fund is part.

The EPPO said that there were a total of 618 active investigations into alleged fraud cases in Italy at the end of 2023, worth 7.38 billion euros, including 5.22 billion euros from VAT fraud alone.

At the end of 2023, the EPPO had a total of 1,927 investigations open, with an overall estimated damage to the EU budget of 19.2 billion euros.

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