Italian Federation's president to take legal action against local media / News - Basketnews.com

Multiple Italian outlets published information that the current federation's president, Gianni Petrucci, made some behind-the-scenes moves to guarantee an easier re-election this year. Petrucci has announced he would take legal action against the media that published such information.

Credit: Roberto Serra - Iguana Press/Getty Images Credit Roberto Serra - Iguana Press/Getty Images

The election of the Italian Basketball Federation's (FIP) president is scheduled for 2024, and with the date slowly approaching, a scandal has risen in the country.

Throughout the last few days and weeks, information started to arise in local media about the current president, Gianni Petrucci, and his supposed methods to guarantee an easier win in the upcoming election.

Petrucci was accused of manipulating the FIP election law to allow an easier re-election. Namely, one of the things the Italian executive supposedly did was change the way ballots are counted, dismissing bad or empty ballots from the total and counting only valid ballots toward the required election percentage.

A candidate needs two-thirds of all votes to be elected. As such, this move would decrease the number of ballots required to collect in order to be re-elected.

Additionally, it is claimed that FIP currently has a significant budget deficit that hasn't been publicly and clearly explained. Petrucci has also received some pushback from local unions.

FIP has now released an official letter from Petrucci, announcing that the president will take legal action against journalists and media outlets that published such information for defamation.

Full FIP announcement:

The Federal President announces that he has given the mandate today to his trusted lawyers in order to prosecute in the appropriate criminal and civil venues those responsible for anonymous writings with defamatory content disclosed in recent days. As well as those media outlets which, having published a significant number of unfounded, specious, and exploitative news in the recent period, have overall generated erroneous beliefs in the recipient public regarding the methods of conducting and managing federal activities, causing the Federation and the individual of his legal representative serious damage to his image and reputation.

Subscribe to BN+ and get access to exclusive content.