Sports Minister Andrea Abodi sent a formal request on the evening of Thursday 4 June to ANAC, Italy's National Anti-Corruption Authority, and to CONI's Collegio di Garanzia, its sporting arbitration body, asking whether Giovanni Malago is eligible to lead the FIGC, Italy's football federation 1.
The legal hook is a three-year cooling-off rule, known as pantouflage, for officials who held supervisory power over the bodies they later seek to run. Malago left the CONI presidency in June 2025, one year ago, well inside the bar. ANAC and CONI received the request "with surprise and considerable frustration", per Il Fatto Quotidiano, which noted it came more than two weeks after a 20 May parliamentary inquiry 2.
This is the first institutional escalation of a challenge that had only been flagged when Malago filed his candidacy in May, pushed past 50% by the lower leagues , and the pantouflage question surfaced . Abodi set 15 June for both bodies to reply, roughly six working days across two weekends, landing the answer three days after the tournament opens and one week before the 22 June Federal Council vote. The frontrunner who holds more than half the assembly could be ruled out before he can be confirmed.
