In Serie A, the legal dispute over the Lazio-Salerintana timeshare is about to break out. By June 25, three days from the deadline for registration applications, Lazio president Claudio Lotito must sell one of the two clubs he owns, as militants from the next 2021/22 season, both in Serie A. of the Federal Council was clear. Article 16 bis of the Noif excludes the presence in the same category of two teams of the same property. The president of the FIGC, Gabriele Gravina He reiterated this several times: «You don’t need penalties because you can’t really register for the championship. The FIGC, Coni and international standards require it. Standards known since July 2013 ».
The property of Lazio and Salernitana
The Unione Sportiva Salernitana 1919 srl belongs equally to Omnia service One srl – which is 100% owned Enrico Lotito, the 25-year-old son of Claudio Lotito – and to La Morgenstern srl – which is 100% owned by Memini srl and is part of the Marco Mezzaroma, brother-in-law of Claudio Lotito. The Lazio sports club, listed on the stock exchange, instead belongs 67% to Lazio Events srl, the holding company established in 2004 to save the club from the default of Sergio Cragnotti’s Cirio era, and which Claudio Lotito controls through three vehicles (Snam Lazio South, Linda and Bona Dea). The situation of the two clubs therefore falls perfectly within the case referred to in Article 16 bis of the Noif.
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The prohibition of mutual ownership
This rule establishes in fact that “No shareholdings or managements are allowed which give the same subject direct or indirect controls in companies belonging to the professional sphere”. There is control of a company or a sports association when “the majority of the votes of decision-making bodies or adominant influence by reason of particularly qualified shareholdings or particular contractual obligations “. The rule that contains a principle of the national and international sports order was explicitly approved by the FIGC last May, in view of the potential promotion of Salernitana in order not to leave any doubts of interpretation. The same rule has saved the existing situations (the Lazio-Salernitana one, but also that Naples-Bari, clubs that have the same ownership in Aurelio De Laurentiis’ Filmauro group), without prejudice to the obligation to sell one of the two timeshare clubs upon the occurrence of the situation of coexistence in the same league.
The solution
Faced with the need to sell one of the two clubs and in particular the newly promoted Salernitana in Serie A, Lotito appears hesitant. The lack of offers deemed adequate (the Campania club is valued between 60 and 70 million), in the face of the seller’s state of need, risks depleting his assets. For which he is considering an alternative solution to the sale of the club to a private individual or to a fund and in particular to the establishment of a trust. In these hours, his lawyers are confronting those of the FIGC.
The rules of the trust
The trust is a legal model that arose in the Anglo-Saxon common law system and also spread to other civil law systems such as the Italian one that can be built in various ways to manage family or business assets. In practice, the assets covered by the agreement are legally separated from their owner (the person establishing the trust) in a sort of watertight compartment, and registered in the name of another person who acts as administrator of the same according to the established trust “rules” by the owner. This can also be done in the interest of a third party beneficiary.