Italian Law 91/1981, Article 18B

In 2002, the world of Italian association football was suffering from serious debt problems, in part due to the use of accounting tricks of dubious legality,^[8] which led to many clubs on the verge of bankruptcy due to excessive debt.^[7] Inter (€-319 million), Milan (€-242 million), Roma (€-234 million), and Lazio (€-215 million) were the most indebted clubs at the time; one club (Fiorentina) went bankrupt after being declared insolvent that year.^[6]

The football-saving decree law took its name from the accounting facilities for sports clubs, referred to in Article 3;^[9] among these were the possibility of spreading the players' assets over ten years.^[10] A further facilitation, the possibility of deducting the devaluation of the player's card for tax purposes, was later removed on the recommendation of Mario Monti, the then European Commissioner for Competition.^[11] Among the other provisions contained in the decree, the rate for the return of capital from abroad (tax shield) was lowered to 2.5%, and the dismissal (sale) of some real estate owned by the Italian state was envisaged. The decree was taken advantage of by all professional clubs, with the exception of Juventus and Sampdoria.^[7]

After the establishment of the amortization fund, amortization was lower in general.^[12] After the players became free agents, their deferred value was still counted as assets; this was unacceptable by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or Italian standards.^[13] The deferment was borrowing future income. Although future team resources would be limited; according to a University of Salerno research paper, the deferred cost might allow a club to utilize the tax allowance more effectively.^[13]

Changes in amortization may be due to investment of player assets or player contract extensions; the amortization time frame may also affect its amount. It was reported that 15 clubs had set up such special amortization fund,^[12] for example Inter, Milan, and Roma.^[15]

Roberto Maroni of Lega Nord, at the time Italian Minister of Labour and Social Policies, defined the law as "a gift to football teams".^[16] Rocco Buttiglione, the Italian Minister of Community Policies, commented that "it is not a law that has the purpose of state aid because there is no direct transfer of resources from the state budget to the budget of sports clubs."^[11] Carlo Giovanardi, the then minister for relations with Parliament, when answering a question in the Italian Parliament, said that there would be a tax advantage for the state, an argument based on the assumption that without this law some football clubs would inevitably go bankrupt, resulting in a loss of revenue for the state.^[10] Adriano Galliani, the then president of Lega Calcio and managing director of Milan, a club that was able to save its debt following the law,^[17] and who was in favour of the government initiative, was later contested by the organized supporters of several clubs, with banners stating that the money used to finance the law came from the average Italian.^[16] The Italian jurist Victor Uckmar defined the law as "false accounting [being] legalized".^[7]

The European Union rejected the law in 2003 and 2005.^[18][19] The clubs faced another shortfall in 2007; they had to abolish the amortization fund by 30 June 2007, five years before the original scheduled date. UEFA required all clubs to use IFRS, and the fund was incompatible with the standard. This came after Law no. 115 of 2005 abolished Article 18B.^[20]

Before 2006, SSC Napoli was bankrupt when its owner refused to increase share capital in 2004 but the club was revived debt-free as a new company by current owner Aurelio De Laurentiis. When Parma was under administration, most of its toxic assets were written off and its balance sheet was transferred to new company Parma FC SpA. Roma recapitalized several times during the 2003–04 Serie A season, swinging between positive and negative net equity since 2006. During the 2005–06 Serie A season, Roma had a net equity of €67,808,577 in a separate balance sheet, with the special 10-year fund of €80,189,123 on the asset side;^[21] if the fund was entirely deferred amortization,^{[nb 1]} the club had a negative equity of €12,380,546 on the separate balance sheet. Using IFRS in the 2006–07 financial year, Roma had a 2005–06 negative net equity of €22,980,335 on the separate balance sheet reported on 30 June 2006. The club created a subsidiary, Soccer SAS di Brand Management, revaluing the brand at €125.122 million.^[22] Although Lazio had a positive equity of €29,637,929 with the special fund at €127,746,321, if the fund contained deferred amortization only,^[23] the club had a negative equity of €98,108,392. In 2006–07, Lazio also changed to IFRS, with a reclassified negative net equity for the previous season of €25,406,939. The club overcome the shortfall on a separate balance sheet with subsidiary SS Lazio Marketing & Communication, selling its brand to the subsidiary for €104.5 million; this boosted the separate balance sheet but not the consolidated one.^[24] Inter and Milan made similar moves,^[25][26] despite large cash injections by the owner of both clubs.^[27][28]

It is widely considered one of Berlusconi's ad personam laws (a type of clientelism) in favour of his own business;^[29][30] the other was the Lentini affair in 1995, in which he secretly paid €5 million to Torino FC for the footballer Gianluigi Lentini but the statute of limitations expired due to the new laws on false accounting approved by Berlusconi's government.^[31] The aforementioned decriminalization of false accounting during the second Berlusconi government allowed Inter Milan and Milan to be acquitted in 2008 for charges of false accounting that would have allowed the clubs to pay for the registration to the 2004–05 Serie A season.^[32][33] Additionally, from 1991 to 1997, when Berlusconi was the club's chairman and not honorary, Milan won four scudetti that, according to the thesis of the Milan public prosecutor's office, they should not have been able to play because they were not in compliance with the budget parameters set by the Italian Football Federation, and were able to do so after falsifying the balance sheet under the Galliani management. Galliani was indicted in 2001 but the trial was postponed, allowing the statute of limitations to hit in July 2002, the same year of the decriminalizion of false accounting.^[34]

Despite being the sole Serie A club to not benefit from the law, as it was financially successful under the Luciano Moggi–Antonio Giraudo–Roberto Bettega management, Juventus were investigated under allegations of false accounting and capital gains; the club under Giovanni Cobolli Gigli and Jean-Claude Blanc offered a plea bargain, which was rejected by the judge Dante Cibinel. Unlike the Inter and Milan cases, both the club and its former directors were acquitted con formula piena, which is distinct from acquittals that may result from a lack of evidence for conviction or because the act does not constitute a crime, meaning that they were acquitted because they did not commit any of the crimes they were charged for. The summary judgment was issued by Cibinel on 24 November 2009.^[35]

• "Legge 91/1981" (PDF). FIGC (in Italian). Italian Football Federation. 11 November 2003. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
• Morrow, Stephen (May 2006). "Impression management in football club financial reporting" (Archive of the University of Stirling). International Journal of Sport Finance. 1 (2): 96–108.