«The (uncontested) prerequisite for enrollment in the championship was the fulfillment of the obligations set out in the CU n. 169/A within the peremptory deadline valid for all candidates for participation in the championship, i.e. 20 June 2023, fulfillment possible but not performed by the appellant, with consequent irrelevance of the different timing envisaged for payments by the sentence of the Bankruptcy Court». Thus the Lazio Tar in the reasons for the sentence with which it rejected the appeal brought by the Reggina company 1914 Srl to contest the decision with which the Collegio di Garanzia dello Sport rejected his appeal for readmission to the next Serie B championship on 20 July.
The administrative judges considered that in the specific case “there is no conflict between the decisions of the bankruptcy court of Reggio Calabria, which assigned the appellant the term of 30 days (expiring on 12 July 2023) for the payment of the sums admitted to approval and the decision of Covisoc to (continue to) refer to the peremptory deadline of 20 June 2023 set by CU n. 169/A, to demonstrate the existence of the requirements for participation in the Serie B championship, 2023/2024 season.
This last decision, in fact, constitutes a smooth execution of the ‘rules of the game’, established by the Federation on 19 April 2023 with CU no. 66/A, well before the start of the sports competition, in order to be able to participate in that competition».
In essence, “admitted to the approval procedure on 12 June 2023, the appellant could have, as has also been clarified, fulfilled the payment of the tax and social security debts by the deadline of 20 June 2023, but did not do so until 5 July 2023, without providing adequate and proven justifications in this regard, except for the generic reference to ‘elementary organizational needs’, which do not demonstrate the existence of an effective impediment”.
“In other words, the appellant company cannot first adapt to the rules dictated by the Federation for participation in the championship and only after having disregarded them claim to contest them, appealing to the decisions of the bankruptcy court, which would have allowed it, moreover, to respect the deadline imposed by the Federation on all candidates for the same sporting competition».
