NEWLY-PROMOTED PARMA will start the new season on a level footing with the rest of Serie A after a five-point penalty was overturned and replaced with a fine.
The sanction was originally imposed in July by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) after they concluded Parma forward Emanuele Calaio sent “suspicious” messages to Spezia players last term.
Calaio – who used to play for La Spezia – was found to have communicated with former team-mates Filippo De Col and Claudio Terzi ahead of the Serie B fixture between the teams at the end of the 2017/18 season.
In the FIGC’s case document, which named both De Col and Terzi, it accused Calaio of “trying to get less commitment from the players of Spezia”. Parma won the game 2-0 to secure a third successive promotion.
Parma appealed and the FIGC on Thursday announced they have reduced the severity of the punishment to a €20,000 fine.
Calaio, initially banned for two years, has seen that decreased to five months and a €30,000 fine and he will be eligible to play again at the start of 2019.
Parma managing director Luca Carra was satisfied with the verdict, telling the club’s official website:
We have asked our fans to trust us, to be close to us. For this reason we are proud to have shown that the screams and controversies in the newspapers are nothing more than the noise created by those who, often, are wrong and have nothing to lose.
“And that above all they can be proud, as we are, of a company that has been reborn from the ashes, and that in three years has reached a goal that no one had ever managed to conquer. And above all, nobody will ever be able to stain.”
After two consecutive promotions, Parma open their Serie A campaign at home to Udinese on 19 August.
- Omni
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