The long soap opera linked to the assignment of the historic ‘Carlo Gotti’ athletics field in via Campo di Marte has now come to an end. The Council of State has in fact issued the ruling that assigns the city facility to the management of Libertas, the commercial company founded a few years ago but immediately very active, thus effectively taking it away from Edera, the association that has always been at the head of ‘Gotti’, overturning the judgment of the TAR which Ivy itself had appealed to in the first instance after losing its ‘race’ in participating in the municipal tender.
The Council of State, with the sentence published two days ago, agreed with the Municipality of Forlì, having not considered the extension applicable – provided for by law in the Milleproroghe Decree – because the administration’s notice had been issued before the extension law and because the concession had not expired on the date of entry into force of the Milleproroghe only due to a so-called ‘technical extension’.
“Likewise, the administrative judges of last resort – we read in a statement from Libertas, the company that had won the Municipality’s tender for the assignment of management, which was then ‘suspended’ by the Regional Administrative Court – also declared totally unfounded all the other objections that Edera Forlì had raised against the municipal administrative action: no conflict of interest on the part of the president of Libertas Atletica Forlì (Sara Samorì) for her role as municipal councilor at the time and full legitimacy in the assignment of scores for the technical offer who had seen the Edera proposal rejected. Finally, the Libertas group’s full capacity also from an operational point of view due to the management experiences gained with SportCity”.
The point of view of the winning group of the tender is further expressed by the lawyer Christian Zovico, of the Vicenza Bar, who for three years has been assisting Libertas Atletica Forlì in the long conflict with Edera precisely for the various issues linked to the management of Gotti, first for the assignment tender, then for the various appeals. “Already last year – explains the Venetian lawyer – we had expressed strong skepticism about how the TAR of Bologna in all its decisions at the time, regardless of any circumstances, had chosen to reward all plant managers without distinction with the extension legal at the end of 2022. We had in fact ordered the Municipality of Forlì to propose the appeal to the Council of State, precisely for the same reasons with which the Council of State has now fully agreed with the municipal administrative action”.
The second degree administrative judges recognized that there was a tender largely underway and Edera had implicitly renounced the legal extension dictated by the Milleproroghe with the filing of the participation application nine days after its entry into force. “The appeal decision recognizes – concludes the lawyer Zovico – how the appeal to the TAR dell’Edera was made only following the outcome of the tender in which the commission had judged Libertas’ management project very positively and had rejected their request”.
Edera, as the losing party, was also sentenced to double payment of the costs of the two levels of judgement,
