Gianluca Rocchi puts an end to one of the most controversial issues left over from the investigation into referee appointments: his possible direct relations with Inter's management. The former referee appointee claims that he never spoke to the Nerazzurri president Giuseppe Marotta and, in general, did not seek direct contact with the club's management. This is the answer given by the former Serie A and B referee appointee in an interview with Corriere dello Sport, after more than four months that, as he says, he spent in a "nightmare".
An important clarification, since the wiretaps included in the investigation had revealed several conversations in which Rocchi spoke about complaints coming from the black and blue environment. The prosecution then requested the archiving of his case, while Inter was registered as the subject of the investigation and at the same time the case was archived: the investigators acknowledged the "historical existence" of specific episodes of interference, but without identifying a structured system aimed at changing the results of matches.
Rocchi: "Marotta? I've never heard of him"
Asked directly about his relationship with Marotta, Rocchi replies: "Never." And he adds that he has not had and has not sought relationships with other managers, explaining that this is precisely why he created the role of "referee manager", in charge of relations with clubs.
This does not mean, however, that the clubs' complaints did not reach him. Rocchi acknowledges this in the following response: all clubs have always had something to say about referees, he notes. The difference, according to his version, lies in the concrete effect of these complaints: "I have never favoured or mistreated teams," he claims, stressing that he has always decided independently.
What the phone calls about Inter really said
And this is precisely the element that allows the wiretaps subject to the investigation to be reread. In a conversation in April 2025, Rocchi complained bitterly about Inter's protests and discussed the possibility of not appointing referee Simone Sozza for Inter-Verona. In other calls, requests or preferences for referees like Colombo appeared, always referred to Rocchi through other interlocutors.
However, the Prosecutor's Office itself has stressed that no direct wiretapped contact between former designer Rocchi and Inter's management has ever emerged. The documents consider it extremely likely that some direct conversations may have taken place, but without concrete evidence: above all, it has not been proven that any instructions were intended to violate the regularity of the matches.
Rocchi today completes that picture without denying that the pressures reached the world of arbitration: he denies, however, that he spoke to president Marotta and that these complaints determined his choices. A distinction that matches the essence of the archive: specific interventions reconstructed by investigators, but no evidence of an agreement or a system to manipulate the appointments of arbitrators.
And when it is pointed out that some controversial phrase on the phone may have escaped him anyway, Rocchi closes with a significant clarification: he says that he receives up to a hundred calls a day, but that he has never crossed "the line of correctness. In facts". It is precisely on these facts that the criminal investigation, at least in its main line, has not found sufficient elements to go further.
