Winter Olympics: Milan's investigating judge calls for the Constitutional Court's intervention on the government decree that "locks down" the Foundation.

The latest front of conflict between the judiciary and the Meloni government , after countless cases ranging from the Almasri affair to the Strait of Messina Bridge to the migrant issue in Albania, involves the largest sporting event the country will host in the coming months.

We are obviously talking about the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics . On Thursday, Patrizia Nobile , a preliminary investigations judge in Milan, raised before the Constitutional Court the question of the constitutionality of the decree issued in the summer of 2024 by which the Meloni government had reaffirmed the qualification of the Milan-Cortina Foundation, organizer of the next Olympics, as a private law entity .

That government move was effectively a political ploy to halt investigations launched by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office into alleged bid-rigging related to the Olympic Games. The investigation involves alleged direct contracts rigged between 2020 and 2021 in exchange for bribes for digital services. High-profile suspects include the Foundation's former CEO, Vincenzo Novari, and former executive Massimiliano Zuco.

Pending the Constitutional Court's ruling, investigating judge Patrizia Nobile has suspended proceedings against the seven defendants in the proceedings. The judge thus agrees with the Milan prosecutors: for the Prosecutor's Office, the Milano-Cortina Foundation is a public, not private, body , and therefore the Constitutional Court should annul the decree, thus unblocking the investigation.

Those provisions had been inserted by the government in the "post-disaster reconstruction" decree of June 11, 2024: according to the Prosecutor's Office, they did not meet the requirements of "necessity and urgency" and, above all, were not "consistent" with the relevant subject matter.

The move, by the Prosecutor's Office and now by the investigating judge, has already infuriated Lombardy Region President Attilio Fontana . "The magistrates are trying to undermine an organization that is functioning and providing excellent results," the governor argued in an interview on 7Gold. "We await the outcome of the Supreme Court's decision, but I believe all the behavior committed under the law in question precludes any crime. The Prosecutor's Office's behavior is also quite anomalous," Fontana emphasized, also taking on the role of judge for the occasion.