It risks being a really bad mess.Salvasport tax', i.e. the use of the fund established in May 2020, fueled by a tax from the 0,5% on bets, and intended for the relaunch of the national sports system.
The Government's intent, with that measure applied to physical and online betting, was to counteract the negative economic effects produced on the sports sector by the interventions arranged to contain the spread of the Covid 19 pandemic. Sums went to the benefit of amateur sports clubs.
However, it only took a few months, and some checks on the beneficiaries, to understand that there was something strange.
To begin with, the funds used were two and not one. Both with the same purposes. One might therefore ask why this choice was made. The other perplexity concerns the absence of a controller, that is, someone responsible for verifying those entitled to the fund.
Generally speaking, therefore, the sum disbursed during 2020-21 was approximately 490,14 million euros, for a total of just under 41.400 amateur sports associations.
It was above all the associations in Northern Italy that grabbed those resources, almost half of the total beneficiaries for a similar percentage of sums assigned (compared to those available).
The Provinces that received the most non-repayable contributions are Rome, Milan, Naples and Salerno. Pretty normal, one might say, if it weren't for a few 'oddities'. This is the case of the Province of Viterbo, with a population of just over 300.000 inhabitants, 683 associations registered with CONI. Over 15 million euros ended up in this province and 6.243 funds disbursed. To put it simply, a lower number of contributions second only to that of the Metropolitan City of Rome.
Hence the need to carry out checks to understand if there have been irregularities.
A commission established within the Sports Department of the Presidency of the Council will deal with it. The Department has taken over the management of the National Register of Amateur Sports Activities, and started a direct verification of requirements such as the number of members and affiliation. To avoid future problems, we have also thought about the implementation of an integrated platform that will simplify the procedures through, also, the cross-referencing of data and interoperability with other platforms and databases.
The first phase of checks on the first eight hundred beneficiaries of the contributions granted ended in September. We continue with beneficiaries who have not yet provided feedback or satisfactory answers. For this reason, the Guardia di Finanza was involved with the aim of defining a Memorandum of Understanding to carry out checks and checks on the territory. More than two years after that law, we are still in this phase. Fiamme Gialle and information technology to clarify a provision which, cards in hand, turns out to be only a problem and a damage for betting dealers.
