Marotta: “Disrespect shown to Conte”

With reference to yesterday’s news published by some newspapers concerning Antonio Conte’s alleged involvement in recent football scandals, Juventus have defended their manager. In particular, the club’s managing director Giuseppe Marotta, who spoke to Sky shortly before the match against Roma. “Is Conte worried? He’s obviously concerned because he’s a good person with a strong moral compass, and I had the chance to understand his behaviour in the last months of cooperation. Being involved in this way, especially being condemned by media by capital letter titles in every newspaper is very far from his idea of football and from the world in which he’s been living for many years. I think that accusing him of being involved in the last illegal betting events is absolutely out of place. This scandal must certainly be eradicated, strongly opposed and investigated, but I think that Conte’s name has been exploited.” These are the thoughts of the Bianconeri’s managing director about the role played by some media which have particularly emphasised the news: “I agree on the need for the legal principle of safeguarding, but I think that it’s too early to speak about suspensions when there is no certainty. Moreover, hundreds of names emerged in these months of inquiry, but only Conte found a lot of negative space. Therefore, I think that passing a judgment of one year and six months suspension due to omitted notification is absolutely rash. Above all it’s simply disrespect.”