BARI – FC Bari 1908 was declared bankrupt on 14 January 2019. The former referee Gianluca Paparesta, after giving new life to the club on the ashes of the Matarrese family’s AS Bari (bankrupt in March 2014), was sole director of the company until 21 December 2015 and then president of the board of directors until 22 June 2016. That is, three years before Bari, now branded Giancaspro, went bankrupt. “It is not clear how a causal link can be considered to exist between the modest failure to pay taxes in 2015 and the bankruptcy of the company in 2019.” This is just one of the passages of the detailed technical advice with which Paparesta’s defense demonstrated the former referee’s total involvement in the crash and, indeed, his attempt to revive it.
A reconstruction made of numbers and analysis of accounting documents, signed by the accountant Beniamino Di Cagno, which was among the elements underlying the decision of the preliminary hearing judge Rosa Caramia to acquit Paparesta, with a full formula, of all charges, defended in the trial by lawyer Gaetano Sassanelli.
THE ACCOUNTS DO NOT add up Paparesta was then accused, for example, “of favoring himself, to the detriment of other creditors”, having received a remuneration as director of approximately 216 thousand euros. The consultant highlighted that the ordinary shareholders’ meeting on 18 November 2014 had approved “a fixed and invariable compensation of 360 thousand euros”. Paparesta, therefore, “collected only part of the compensation approved by the assembly, more than a third less than what was established” for the first year of administration and “no compensation for the 2016 financial year, with express waiver”.
Furthermore, the former referee was accused of having “systematically failed to pay taxes and contributions”, without however taking into account – explained the consultant – that the tax debts at the end of each financial year were almost all subsequently paid. With reference, then, to the failure to pay the Tari for approximately 160 thousand euros, it has been demonstrated that – on the basis of a resolution of the municipal council of August 2014 with which the management of the San Nicola stadium and the stadium was granted to the club FC Bari 1908 Arena della Vittoria, postponing «every decision regarding the waste tax until the next concession to be stipulated» (never stipulated) – «no burden was expected to be borne by the company for the waste tax for the year 2015».
Another aspect highlighted in the consultancy is that relating to deferred tax assets. The accountant Di Cagno highlighted that «there were well-founded expectations based on objective factual data (satisfactory football results, the extraordinary response of the public, the interest shown by sponsors and new investors), that the company would achieve a satisfactory result which would allow it to begin recovering the deferred tax assets recognized”. Furthermore, in June 2015, Paparesta had prepared “a multi-year business plan which confirmed the positive expectations by highlighting the improvement in the economic and financial situation”.
PAPARESTA’S DEFENSE In the last hearing of the trial it was Paparesta himself who explained that «the moment I felt the economic difficulty the company was experiencing, I immediately renounced my compensation as a director and above all when, as soon as the presence of losses which had brought the capital below the legal minimum, at the meeting I not only limited myself to proposing the reconstitution of the old share capital equal to two million euros but I brought it to 7.5 million, opening it up to third parties who would have to guarantee a solid future for society.”
Things came to a head after June 2016, with the company now in the hands of the new partner, Cosmo Antonio Giancaspro, accumulating debts for millions of euros which caused its collapse and then its collapse. Events on which a trial is underway in which Giancaspro, accused of bankruptcy, will be able to tell the truth about him in the next hearing on June 27th.
