Moratti: ‘Inter never helped by referees, ridiculous compared to Calciopoli’

“I had fear and respect of the referees then, because they could decide the fate of my team, especially considering we had Juventus on the other side. I still imagined this was a difficult profession, and consequently I didn’t speak to them.

“I read interviews with De Santis and Luciano Moggi, who were found guilty in Calciopoli, and it’s incredible that people are asking for their opinion on the matter.

“What is happening now is ridiculous compared to that.”

Several clubs were caught up in the Calciopoli scandal for communication and pressure on the refereeing designators to assign certain officials or avoid others, but at no point was sporting fraud one of the charges.

A large part of it was intercepted phone calls with the refereeing chiefs, but some with then-Inter director Giacinto Facchetti were only discovered several years later, after the statute of limitations had passed.

FC Internazionale Milano new president Milano Erick Thohir and honorary president Massimo Moratti (R) attend a press conference after the FC Internazionale Milano shareholders’ meeting on November 15, 2013 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)

Moratti, who saw Inter handed the 2005-06 Scudetto because all the clubs ahead of them in the table had been docked points in the scandal, maintains their absolute innocence both then and now.

“Seeing the games, I don’t see anything unbalanced. Inter never had help, not when they won and not when they lost. Refereeing errors can happen, and often they are serious errors, but these things have always happened.”