Former Fiorentina coach Carlo Mazzone is under investigation over the 1987 leukaemia death of player Bruno Beatrice after claims he underwent radiation treatment to cure an injury.
Mazzone, Fiorentina coach between 1975 and 1978, has been accused of manslaughter by a Florence prosecutor. Beatrice died aged 39 having been diagnosed two years earlier with leukaemia.
A medical assessment requested by the prosecutor said: “There exists a compatibility between the therapy practised in 1976 and the acute leukaemia diagnosed in Beatrice in 1985.”
Mazzone told Radio Radio that any treatment was carried out by the medical team and that he did not interfere with their work.
“The investigators came here…some time ago to know what happened and I replied that I was the man on the field, I didn’t know what happened in the medical room,” he said. “I never interfered in the work of the doctors.”
Several Italian players from the 1970s and 80s have died prematurely with relatives accusing the clubs of contributing to their deaths by employing dangerous and unproven treatments.
