Four reporters stalked by representatives of Milan football club

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Luca Pagni, Enrico Currò, Carlo Festa and Tobia de Stefano were shadowed from the 19th February to the 2nd March 2018. “We didn’t notice anything”

From the 19th February to the 2nd March 2018 the reporters Enrico Currò and Luca Pagni di La Repubblica, Carlo Festa of Il Sole 24 Ore and Tobia De Stefano of Libero were shadowed on behalf of the then managing director of the Milan football club, Marco Fassone. He had thus intended to discover the confidential source that had revealed to the reporters news on the financial difficulties of the Milan club, on its corporate structure and on its plans for the future. The story emerged at the Employment Tribunal of Milan, to which Fassone had turned after his dismissal, which took place in August 2018, asking for his reinstatement.

In February-March 2018, the football company was owned by the Chinese Yonghong Li, who had contracted with the American fund Elliott a loan of about 380 million euros. The Chinese businessman had requested the loan in order to buy the Milan club from the Finivest company. He had pledged to extinguish the debt by the end of 2018 but instead, in July, Elliot became the actual owner of the team.

The issue of stalking came to light following the change in ownership, when the investigative company Carpinvest, in July 2018, asked the new top management, appointed by the American fund Elliot, 74,000 euro as recompense for the activities carried out on behalf of Fassone. From the Carpinvest letter it emerged that some employees had also been shadowed.

The former managing director defended himself against the accusations by arguing that the actions against journalists and employees had been agreed with the old management. Both Luca Pagni from La Repubblica and Tobia De Stefano from Libero have declared to Ossigeno that they had never noticed being stalked.

RDM (wt)