Iaquinta cleared of Mafia association

By Football Italia staff

World Cup winner Vincenzo Iaquinta has been cleared of aiding and abetting organised crime, but his father was sentenced to 19 years in prison.

Iaquinta is from the Calabria region, the heartland of the ‘Ndrangheta, and it was always known his family had associations with the local Mafia.

He had been found guilty of keeping his own legally-purchased weapons at his father’s house, which contravenes the norms on gun ownership, and sentenced to two years in October 2018.

However the judges today ruled on appeal that Iaquinta’s actions were “not in pursuit of aiding the Mafia so much as helping his father, with whom he has a tight personal relationship.”

Iaquinta’s father, Giuseppe, was sentenced to 19 years in prison for being “a strategic figure within the criminal organisation.”

Now 39, Iaquinta played in Serie A for Udinese and Juventus.

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