Franco Carraro (born 6 December 1939) is an Italian sports manager and politician with a career spanning over five decades. During his career, Carraro came to hold a series of positions and roles within sports and finance industries, and in both private and public sectors. For decades, he was also a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and remains an honorary member after the approval of an age limit in 2019.
From 1966 and 1971, Carraro was associated with the Italian association football club Milan during a successful spell for the club. He began working for the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) and the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) during the 1970s, serving three terms as FIGC president between 1976 and 2006 when he resigned due to the 2006 Italian football scandal, and three terms as CONI president from 1978 to 1987. During the 1990s, he was also president of the National Professionals League (LNP), better known as Lega Calcio (equivalent of The Football Association in England), the governing body of Serie A and Serie B.
Carraro's political career began in the 1980s when he joined the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). From 1987 to 1990, he was Minister of Tourism and Entertainment. In 1989, he was elected mayor of Rome by the City Council of Rome, serving until 1993 with the establishment of the direct election of mayors. In the 2000s and 2010s, Carraro was associated with the political parties of Silvio Berlusconi. From 2013 to 2018, he was a member of the Senate of the Republic. Despite his later association with centre-right politics, Carraro continued to define himself as a socialist, dating back to his youth.
Carraro's legacy is complex as he left a significant mark on sports and achieved many successes and much influence through the FIGC, CONI, and IOC, presiding over the rise and fall of Italian football. On the other hand, his career was marred by a series of scandals and controversies, although most of the time he was not affected by them. His numerous roles earned him a series of nicknames and the identification with the status quo and the establishment.
Early life Family and education Carraro was born in Padua, in the Italian region of Veneto, at the time Kingdom of Italy during the Fascist Italy era, on 6 December 1939. His father, Luigi Carraro, was the owner of a wholesale distribution company for fabrics and clothing and was president of Milan in 1966, and Carraro himself later discontinued his family businesses. His father often took him to watch the matches of the Milan-based Inter Milan and Milan football clubs. Carraro obtained a degree (laurea) in Economics and Commerce.
Sports champion In his youth, Carraro participated in student competitions in foil and skiing, and successfully practiced water skiing, winning eleven individual Italian titles, three individual European titles, and three team titles. During his career, Carraro practiced a series of sports, including fencing (using foil), skiing, waterskiing, tennis, golf, and sailing. In the 1950s, Carraro was a champion of water skiing. He was the Italian junior champion (1953–1954), Italian Open champion (1955–1960), European champion in slalom and combined (1956 and 1961), European team champion (1958–1960), and bronze medalist at the World Championships (1957). At the age of 23, he was president of the (FISN).
Career From the 1960s to the 1970s
Carraro worked in many high-profile roles in the public and private sectors. He was the president of the FISCNW from 1962 to 1976. From 1967 to 1973, he was also president of the International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation (IWWF). This period coincided with and was followed by senior roles at Milan, succeeding his father. More specifically, Carraro served as vice-chairman from 1966 to 1967 and then as chairman of Milan from 1967 to 1971. During this period under Carraro's chairmanship, Milan saw a series of domestic, continental, and international successes, including the 1967–68 Serie A league title, the 1967–68 European Cup Winners' Cup, the 1968–69 European Cup, and the 1969 Intercontinental Cup. As of November 2024, he was still the youngest club chairman to win the European Cup, later known as the UEFA Champions League, at 29 years and 143 days.
After his father's death in 1966, it was thought that Carraro would liquidate Milan, to which he later recalled: "That wasn't the case: we cut the squad around Rivera, Prati exploded, and we brought back Sormani, the first player in the world to undergo surgery for a herniated disc. We bought Cudicini by chance. We wanted Zoff from Mantua, but Italo Allodi, Inter manager, blocked us. Franco Evangelisti, Roma president, suggested Cudicini, explaining that he'd only sold him to Brescia because Oronzo Pugliese thought he was a trade unionist. Rocco agreed, on the condition that I take responsibility: 'They already criticize me for the veterans, I don't want anyone to say he's coming to Milan because he's from Trieste like me. Of the successes of Milan under him, he observed: "The credit goes to Nereo Rocco, the coach; Bruno Passalacqua, the general manager; and a team where young players blended with veterans. I asked Gino Palumbo to interview me in the Corriere della Sera to explain these things."
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Carraro started his career in the FIGC, working in its technical sector. He was president of Italy's top two football leagues (Serie A and Serie B) from 1973 to 1976 and was president of the FIGC from 1976 to 1978. He began working with the FIGC as federal advisor from 1968 to 1972, then as vice-president from 1973 to 1976, and as president from 1976 to 1978 and from 2001 to 2006. On 19 May 1978, Carraro resigned from his FIGC roles to become president of CONI, a position he held until 1987, when he joined the Goria government. Before becoming president in 1978, he was also vice-president of CONI in 1977. As of October 2012, Carraro was still a member of CONI's Executive Committee and National Council.
From the 1980s to the 2000s
From 1982 to 2019, alongside Mario Pescante, Ottavio Cinquanta, and Manuela Di Centa, Carraro was a member of the IOC; per IOC policy, namely an age-limit fixed at 70 years old, except for members between 1966 and 1999, for whom the age limit is 80, Carraro retired in 2019 but was made an honorary member in 2020. In September 2000, he became part of the IOC's executive, a position he held until August 2004. In January 2002, he also became chairman of the Olympic Programme Commission. He was chairman of the Olympic Programme Working Group from 1998 to 2001. After acting as vice-chairman from 1983 to 1994, he became chairman of the Olympic Programme Commission in 2002. He was chairman of the Working Group of the IOC Commission 2000. He was also respectively member and vice-chairman of the IOC's Finance Commission from November 2000 to March 2004 and from 2001 to 2003. During his career at ICO, Carraro was member of many commissions, including those of Eligibility (1983–1989), Olympic Solidarity (1986–1987), and the IOC 2000 Reform Follow-Up (2002), and he was a member of the Reform Commission (January 2002–March 2003). He was also a coordinator of the Working Group Composition, Structure, and Organisation of the IOC 2000 Commission (1999).
The 1986 Italian football betting scandal, referred to as Totonero or Totonero bis, created a vacancy that Carraro would accept as the FIGC special commissioner from 1986 to 1987. The presidency would follow that of the Italia 90 Committee, the executive committee of the 1990 FIFA World Cup. In 1994, he became president of Impregilo, which was the biggest pole of Italian construction. He was president of Lega Calcio from 21 February 1997 to 28 December 2001. He was once again elected as president of the FIGC on 28 December 2001 and remained in this position until 8 May 2006. He was also a member of the UEFA executive board from 2004 to 2009. As of 2004–2005, Carraro led the FIGC as president, with Giancarlo Abete as deputy vice-president, , Giancarlo Gentile as secretary, Antonello Valentini, Gianni Petrucci as CONI president, Sergio Pagnozzi as CONI general secretary, Carlo Tavecchio as president of the National Amateur League (LND), and Gabriele Gravina as member of the FIGC's Federal Council.
Carraro began working with FIFA as a member of the Amateur Committee and the FIFA Board from 1978 to 1986. From 1980 to 1987, he was also president of the European Olympic Committees (EOC). He was president of the Organising Committees of the UEFA Euro 1980 and the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Around the same period, he was vice-president of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) from 1981 to 1987. In 1986, he became member of the FIFA World Cup Organising Committee, a position he held until 2009. From October 2002 to 2011, he was chairman of the FIFA Internal Audit. He was also a member of UEFA's European Union Matters Working Group from May 2003 to 2007, a Special Advisor to the UEFA Executive Committee from May 2003 to April 2004, and a member of the UEFA Executive Board from April 2004 to March 2009. From 2007 to 2009, he was vice-chairman of the UEFA Committee for National Team Competitions. Around the same timeframe, he was also chairman of the UEFA Marketing Advisory Committee and a member of the UEFA Finance Committee.
From the 2000s to the 2010s
In December 2001, Carraro was elected for a third term as president of the FIGC. Carraro's career was affected by conflict of interest allegations and accuses as he was chairman of Mediobanca, which was owned by Capitalia and was a major investor in Serie A clubs, particularly Lazio, Parma, and Roma. Lazio and Roma respectively went on to win the 1999–00 Serie A and 2000–01 Serie A league titles to Juventus' disadvantage, and he was accused of conflict of interest as he was co-owner of Lazio and Roma through his control of Capitalia, which he dismissed. The early 2000s under his presidency saw a series of scandals, most notably Passaportopoli, gifts to referees (notably Rolexes), and capital gains (plusvalenze) and false accounting; however, most of the clubs (among the top clubs involved were Inter, Lazio, Milan, and Roma) involved only received fines, in part because the involved clubs successfully lobbied to have the rules changed (in relation to Passaportopoli), despite also being investigated by ordinary justice or having received convictions by ordinary justice.
All Serie A and Serie B clubs, except for Juventus and Sampdoria, heavily benefitted from the Italian Law 91/1981, Article 18B (2003), best known as Decreto Salvacalcio ("Football Saving Decree") and signed by the second Berlusconi government and thus seen by critics and other observers as one of Berlusconi's many ad personam laws since he was chairman and owner of Milan, which was one of the clubs to benefit the most from the law, alongside Inter, Lazio, Parma, and Roma. In relation to the failure of Parma as a result of Parmalat's bankruptcy in 2003, Carraro later recalled: "Calciopoli has little to do with that either. I was the one who introduced very strict rules for league registration in the early 2000s: you had to be in good standing with taxes, salaries, and contributions, you couldn't have any debts, and you needed a healthy debt-to-equity ratio. Registration for Napoli and Fiorentina cost money; there were cities I couldn't go to for safety reasons. Then the FIGC relaxed everything in the summer of 2007."