Felice Belloli denies making the comments
The Italian womens cup final has been abandoned over an accusation that a leading football official referred to women players as a “bunch of lesbians”.
Felice Belloli, president of Italy’s amateur football association denied uttering the words which appeared in the written minutes of an amateur football meeting last week.
He told Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport:
“I never signed those minutes. Can you see my signature on them? No, and I can tell you why – because minutes can be taken and amended by anybody. I know how the minutes are taken at the LND (Lega Nazionale Dilettanti). All I am saying is that I did not utter that phrase.”
According to the minutes, when his association was discussing funding, he said:
“That’s enough, we can’t always talk about giving money to this bunch of lesbians.”
When the comments became public, the players from Brescia and Tavagnacco made it clear to their federation, Italy’s national association for female athletes, that they did not want to play the match.
Luisa Rizzitelli is the president of Italy’s national association for female athletes. She told the media:
“To be honest I thought it was a joke but when we realised it wasn’t a joke we immediately wrote to the federation to ask for an immediate investigation. It’s hugely damaging.
“We have a women’s football movement with 11,000 athletes in Italy, you can imagine we have one million playing men’s football.”
The Italian Football Federation has said it is investigating the claim. The match may still go ahead according to Rizzitelli but not while Belloli remains in office:
“All the players have said to the federation that they don’t want to play the final, so now the game is not going ahead. If he resigns the game could still be played.”
