Illegal sale of tickets or parking spaces, willful extortion, mafia infiltration… Milan’s two major football clubs, Inter and AC, are in the crosshairs of justice.
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Following an investigation by Milan’s anti-mafia prosecutor’s office into ultra supporters of the city’s two clubs, 16 people were arrested and three placed under house arrest. The first criticism addressed to the ultras is the illegal resale of tickets: these quotas which benefit the groups installed in the corners on each side of the stadiums. Tickets are resold under the table and with a more than comfortable margin. One of the peaks of the business was reached in the run-up to the Champions League final between Inter and Manchester City, in Istanbul in 2023. There is talk in the press of tickets at 80 euros being resold at 600 or even 800 .The more you can get, the better. The investigation reports pressure exerted by one of the leaders of the ultras on Inter coach, Simone Inzaghi, to inflate the number of tickets. The club eventually gave in.
Other businesses: drugs, parking spaces. The manager of a parking lot told investigators that he was extorted for 4,000 euros per month.
We must remember the context: two assassinations in two years in the world of Inter ultras. The first victim, in 2022, boasted of earning 80,000 euros per month, according to wiretaps revealed at the time by the Italian press. The latest, killed by another ultra, was a known member of the N’Dranghetta, the Calabrian Mafia. Today, two men from the blue and black area are suspected of criminal conspiracy with the aim of favoring a mafia clan.
One of the questions of this investigation, which continues through interrogations even today, is the degree of knowledge that the club management had of these situations. It’s hard to imagine they didn’t know anything. Even if they were presented above all as victims of this trafficking, regarding Inter the prosecutors speak of toxic relations with the ultras. This could ultimately lead to the clubs being placed under surveillance, with the judicial appointment of a special commissioner to restore order to the finances.