12JUN

CONI steps aside; ANAC alone rules on Malagò

3 min read

09:25UTC

Italy's Olympic Committee ruled the eligibility question over FIGC frontrunner Giovanni Malagò outside its remit and handed it wholly to the anti-corruption authority ANAC, which must rule before the 22 June vote.

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Key takeaway

ANAC alone now decides whether a 36-month cooling-off law bars Malagò from the 22 June FIGC ballot.

CONI, the Italian Olympic Committee, ruled on Friday 12 June that the eligibility question over Giovanni Malagò falls outside its remit and handed the matter wholly to ANAC, Italy's national anti-corruption authority ¹. ANAC must now rule before the FIGC (Italian Football Federation) presidential election on Monday 22 June. Malagò is the frontrunner to lead Italian football, and the decision narrows the question to a single arbiter.

The dispute turns on a cooling-off rule most supporters never see. Italy's pantouflage law imposes a 36-month wait before a former public-sector chief takes a private role. Malagò left the CONI presidency in mid-2025 and filed his FIGC candidacy in May 2026, roughly 11 months later, well inside the bar if it applies to him. Sports minister Andrea Abodi referred the question to both bodies on 5 June , and CONI's withdrawal leaves ANAC with full discretion over whether the law reaches the case.

Malagò holds the backing of 18 of Serie A's 20 clubs. An adverse ANAC finding would strike him from the ballot 10 days before the assembly votes, forcing Italian football to choose a federation president with its presumed winner removed and no agreed alternative in place.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Italy's football federation (FIGC) needs a new president, with the vote scheduled for 22 June. The leading candidate is Giovanni Malagò, a well-connected former sports official who ran Italy's Olympic Committee (CONI) until mid-2025. Italian law says that senior officials of government-funded organisations must wait 36 months before taking another public role. Malagò left CONI only about 11 months ago, so a legal challenge was filed. Italy's Olympic Committee said the question was not their problem to resolve, and passed it entirely to ANAC, Italy's national anti-corruption watchdog. ANAC now has roughly 10 days to decide whether Malagò can legally stand. If they rule against him, Italian football faces a governing crisis with no agreed alternative candidate; 18 of Serie A's 20 clubs back Malagò.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The structural conflict arose because Italy's 2019 update to Legislative Decree 39/2013 extended pantouflage rules to senior officials of bodies that receive annual public funding above 500,000 euros, a threshold CONI has never come close to avoiding.

The legislature intended to close the revolving door between publicly funded sports administration and private-sector sports governance. But the law did not anticipate the scenario where two funded bodies in the same sector are competing for personnel; the spirit of the revolving-door rule addressed private-sector capture, not public-sector lateral moves.

Sports Minister Andrea Abodi compressed the calendar by setting the 22 June assembly date under pressure from Serie A clubs who wanted governance clarity before the next transfer window. That deadline, set before the pantouflage challenge emerged, gave ANAC no comfortable ruling window.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In 2014, the French football federation (FFF) faced a governance paralysis when UEFA's integrity rules blocked a candidate from the presidency within 12 months of leaving a regulatory role. The FFF election was suspended for six weeks, eventually proceeding after a legal carve-out was confirmed. Italy's 2026 timeline, 10 days between ANAC's ruling and the 22 June assembly, is tighter than France's six weeks, leaving no equivalent legal safety valve.

Counter-parallel: Spain's La Liga in 2020 navigated a presidential eligibility dispute over Javier Tebas's tenure when an anti-trust complaint threatened his position. Unlike Italy's statutory cooling-off rule, Spain's dispute was grounded in competition law and resolved by an interim injunction, not a full administrative ruling. The Spanish mechanism was faster because it did not require a separate public-authority determination.

Consensus view: Professor Stefano Ceccanti, a constitutional law specialist at La Sapienza University in Rome, has written that Italy's pantouflage legislation (Legislative Decree 39/2013, updated 2019) applies to senior officials of publicly funded bodies, and CONI receives substantial state funding that brings its former president squarely within the statute.

The 36-month cooling-off period began when Malagò formally departed CONI in July 2025; his May 2026 FIGC candidacy falls at 10 months, well inside the prohibited window.

Counter-view: Malagò's legal team, represented by Rome-based administrative law firm Studio Legale Sanino, argues the pantouflage rule applies only to roles with regulatory power over entities from which the official departed, and that FIGC and CONI operate in distinct legal domains (sport association vs public committee) with no regulatory overlap. The argument is that ANAC's jurisprudence on the 2013 decree has never extended to horizontal public-body moves of this nature.

Key tension: Whether ANAC adopts the broad functional interpretation (any senior funded-body departure triggers the 36-month bar) or the narrower regulatory-overlap test Malagò's lawyers are pressing, a distinction that will also determine whether the ruling sets precedent for Italian sports governance beyond football.

Sources:FIFA / France 24·FIFA / France 24

Mentions:CONI →Giovanni Malagò →FIGC →UEFA →Italy →Andrea Abodi →Serie A →Rome →France →Spain →

First Reported In

Update #19 · Mexico finally win an opener, on the ninth try

FIFA / France 24· 12 Jun 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Italy minister challenges Malago election eligibility

Abodi's ANAC and CONI referral (ID:3932) set the process in motion; CONI's withdrawal now leaves ANAC as sole arbiter.

Occurred 4 Jun 2026

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This Event

CONI steps aside; ANAC alone rules on Malagò

An adverse ANAC finding would strike the candidate backed by 18 of 20 Serie A clubs from the ballot 10 days before the federation election, with no settled replacement.

Different Perspectives

FIFA

The 48-team tournament opened on schedule with 104 matches and a $13.1 billion projected revenue cycle, but three of the first weekend's most consequential stories, Iran's fan lockout, SoFi's embedded strike clause, and Malagò's eligibility suspension, were each decided by domestic legal systems operating outside FIFA's authority.

Morocco

Mohamed Ouahbi takes charge of his first senior match in football management against the five-time world champions, with the full-strength defensive structure that reached the 2022 semi-finals intact and facing a Brazilian lineup missing its three most celebrated attackers.

Brazil

Brazil open Group C on Saturday at MetLife without Neymar, Estêvão or Militão against a Morocco side managed by a first-time senior coach, making their opener the most consequential group-stage fixture of the opening weekend in terms of pre-tournament expectation versus squad availability.

FIGC / Italy

CONI's referral of the Malagò eligibility question entirely to ANAC means Italy's federation enters the group stage without a confirmed president-elect, with the anti-corruption regulator holding the power to remove the Serie A-backed frontrunner from the ballot ten days before the 22 June election.

United States

The co-host avoided its worst opening image when SoFi workers ratified a deal averting a strike before Friday's Paraguay opener, though the contractual walkout clause means the threat is deferred not dissolved. Pochettino named his XI with Tillman over Reyna, signalling he will manage risk rather than chase headlines against Paraguay.

FFIRI / Iran

Iran's squad trains in Tijuana with 14 staff still barred from the US, and learned on 9 June that their entire 8% supporter ticket allocation for all three Group G matches was revoked under OFAC sanctions. FFIRI is preparing an Article 4 FIFA complaint over the conditions of participation.