The “Rhythmic Gymnastics case”, which questioned the training methods of the Federal Technical Center of Desio in which the “butterflies” train, that is, the girls of the national team of bronze rhythmic gymnastics in Paris 2024, is far from being concluded in criminal and sporting judicial classrooms.
The investigating judge is wrong to the prosecutor, forced imputation for Maccarani
The request for storage of the Public Prosecutor of Monza did not find the assent of the judge of the preliminary investigations which instead ordered with an order dated 10 March 2025, the forced charge against Emanuela Maccarani, while his collaborator Olga Tishina comes out acquitted Because for her the case is archived.
In 36 pages of detailed motivation and clear the investigating judge explains that according to its evaluation the crime of mistreatment of family members, cohabiting or subjected to custody for reasons of education: “In fact, it is peacefully application in all the contexts in which the taxable person of the crime”, in this case the young girls, some minors at the time of the facts or at the time of the assignment, entrusted to the Federal Technical Center to train with the national team, ” To the authority of the active subject (the coach and technical director ed.) OA these entrusted “for reasons of education, education, care, vigilance or custody” “. AND The abuses are “a crime of mere conduct, for whose realization it is sufficient that the behavior of the agent is suitable from an objective point of view to determine a condition of psycho-physical suffering in the victim not simply transitory, regardless of its effective realization and manifestation”.
In other words, it is not necessary to demonstrate that the damage has actually occurred, but it is sufficient to prove that the behavior required is suitable to cause it. Otherwise reasoning: «In fact, to attribute or not to attribute criminal relevance to objectively identical conduct due to the different sensitivity of the victim or its degree of individual psychic resistance would end up or not (in turn linked to a series of non -predeterminable and heterogeneous variables, not only physical and psychological but also of a social and cultural type) “.
Actions and omissions: distant families and protection obligation
“The test elements acquired during the investigation – and in particular, the declarations of the offended people, found by those of numerous other athletes, the results of the captation activity and, above all, the analysis of the contents extrapolated from the electronic devices in kidnapping – have deceived”, writes the judge, “a plurality of abuses of the active nature of an active nature Put in place by the breeder against the whole team (uncontrolled screams, insults, and sometimes more striking events such as launching objects or overturning tables and chairs) and so of the individual athletes from time to time targeted (ridicule, insults, in one case the launch of a leash and on more than one occasion the imposition to perform training and/or particular exercises despite the health conditions of the gymnast they allowed). They also made an omissive conduct of harmless omissive conduct that are not a no longer less, such as the omitted preparation of nutritional and psychological supportin spite of the requests in this sense advanced by some gymnasts, and omitted control against risk situations already occurred in the past (such as taking laxatives in massive doses or the induction of vomiting to avoid weight increases) “.
In fact, there would have been according to the judge: a “obligation to be recognizable to the coach under the contractual constraints descended from the registration of the athletes to the FGI, as well as the” qualified social contact responsibility “deriving from the awarding of the gymnasts – initially minors – to the Academy of Desio, of which the same was a technical director. The characteristics of the relationship made, in fact, impossible to exercise an effective control by the operators for parental responsibility, given that the athletes lived far from families, did not attend schools and spent most of their days in the gym. This increased the breadth of the obligation of protection on the subjects to whom they were entrusted, making it necessary to supervise three hundred and sixty degrees on their psycho-physical well-being ».
While the judge does not recognize criminal importance to the control of the weight in itself even if frequent or daily: “they arouse”, “on the contrary, more than some doubts the unnecessarily afflictive methods inherent in their” public dimension “”.
Testimonies or subjective interpretations?
In evaluating the hypothesis proposed by the defenses of reasons of resentment by the girls who denounced the mistreatment, the judge observes che is essential to detect how the stories «present numerous correspondences with those of other gymnasts, only some of which are identified as offended peopleand have found significant elements of response in many of the other testimonial depositions, as well as in the conversations subject to interception and in the contents extrapolated from electronic devices in seizure. In consideration of what has been said, the evidentiary material collected during the investigation allows to formulate, against Emanuela Maccarani, a reasonable provision of conviction (requirement for the indictment requested by the recent Cartabia reform that the provision analyzes fully, editor’s note) “.
Maccarani will therefore have to face the trial, this means that a court will be called to ascertain that his conduct will make it or not criminally responsible for the crime of mistreatment, while the request for storage for his collaborator Olga Tishina has been acceptedbecause on him “they emerged, in essence, only comments that are not very respectful towards the athletes, to stigmatize their weight gains. The linguistic deficiencies of the suspect – not of Italian native speakers – and, above all, the position of subordination with respect to the director and the frequent manifestations of emotional closeness to the athletes from time to time took no target do not allow, in fact, to consider the case integrated ».
What happens now
Maccarani will therefore have to face the trial, this means that a court will be called to ascertain that his conduct will make it or not criminally responsible for the crime of mistreatment, while the request for storage for his collaborator Olga Tishina has been acceptedbecause on him “they emerged, in essence, only comments that are not very respectful towards the athletes, to stigmatize their weight gains. The language deficiencies of the suspect – not of Italian native speakers – and, above all, the position of subordination with respect to the director and the frequent manifestations of emotional closeness to the athletes from time to time targeted “do not allow, in fact, to attribute to her mistreatment.
The first controversial sports process
Also on the disciplinary front that is responsible for sports justice, the process that ended in 2023 with the admonition of Maccarani will be redone for the reasons that we reconstruct below.
In September 2023 the technical director was, in fact, he was sanctioned with admonition in the sports process against him, while his collaborator Olga Tishina had not undergone penalties. The sports court chaired by Marco Leoni was called to decide if Maccarani and Tiscina “adopted training and training methods that do not comply with the duties of correctness and professionalism, in particular exercising improperly and obsessively the management of the weight of the gymnasts, operating a daily control and, in the face of variations of weight of modest entity, placing in place psychological pressures, in particular by commissioning with phrases. offensive ».
The sanction had been mild, because it was read in the reasons made public on the following 13 October, although there were no doubt that “the limits of correctness and respect were exceeded imposed by the federal rules (…) it is believed that the expressions used – even if offensive – were not moved by the intention to cause damage, but in order to encourage the athletes and obtain greater commitment in the exercises”.
And however, the proof that those expressions had had connection with the onset of eating disorders in the athletes had not been considered.
The most controversial point of the sports sentence, full of “omissis” to protect the criminal investigations at the current time, concerned the fact that, as evident from the contents reported by the sports judge, several athletes would have made different statements before the sports prosecutor and the magistrates of the Republic.
Removed the sports prosecutor, it was not independent
The mystery of the inconvenience has found partial explanation when In the last months of 2024 an investigation by Corriere della Sera He made serious suspicions emerge about the independence of the investigations conducted by Michele Rossetti, lawyer at the head of the Federral Sports Prosecutor of Federginastic who in the sports process against Maccarani had supported the accusation and had explained the verbal intemperances of the coach with “excess of affection” arousing criticism of the media and outside.
From the interceptions of carabinieri as part of the investigations of the Monza prosecutor who had the criminal proceedings of ordinary justice In fact, elements would have emerged such as to suspect that the federal prosecutor referred to the content of the testimonies to the then federal president of Federginnastica Gherardo Tecchi (to whom Andrea Facci succeeded from March 1, 2025) and that he preferred favorable witnesses to the glued technical director.
In December 2024 the prosecutor General of the Coni, Ugo Taucer decided that the sports process against Maccarani is to be redone, because it may have been polinAto from an unwanted attitude of the prosecutor who would have chosen witnesses with a unilateral vision.
In February 2024, then, with a measure that has very rare precedents in the history of Italian sports justice Michele Rossetti was removed from the position of sports prosecutor at the head of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of the Italian Gymnastics Federation, by decision of the Federal Guarantee Commission, the body that protects the autonomy and independence of the Justice Bodies and therefore of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office itselfcomposed of Giuseppe Massara seized, Carlo Venditti and Eraldo Liberati, for “violation of the duties of independence and confidentiality and serious negligence in the performance of the functions”.
