One of the most colourful figures to sit in the boardrooms of Italian soccer, ex-Perugia chairman Luciano Gaucci, is to return to the country after plea-barganing a sentence linked to his former club's bankruptcy.
''Gaucci is coming back, but not immediately,'' his lawyer said, saying that his client ''still has some things to sort out'' in the Dominican Republic, where he fled in early 2006.
Gaucci was given a three-year term and his two sons 20 months each in the bankruptcy trial but none of the defendants will serve any time because of an intervening amnesty.
The former Perugia owner, who was also at one time deputy chairman of AS Roma, said earlier this month he would not be returning to Italian soccer.
''I always follow the championship...but I won't go back to that world. I only want to be a spectator,'' he told ANSA on the phone from his farm on the Caribbean island.
But he said he was willing to testify in Calciopoli corruption trials, if asked.
Gaucci's legal woes began after the former Serie A club, then home to Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi's footballing son, went bust in 2005.
Prosecutors said some 40 million euros were siphoned out of the soccer club's accounts into Gaucci's other business interests.
Some 20 million euros paid in 2000 by AS Roma for Japanese star Hidetoshi Nakata allegedly went missing.
Gaucci, 69, made the money he needed to enter the world of soccer out of an industrial cleaning business he began after starting out in life as a bus driver.
After success in horse-racing he took over at Perugia in 1991 when it was at the bottom of the C1 third division. He led it up through the league and into the top flight in 1996.
Gaucci often made headlines during his 14-year reign due to frequent televised outbursts in which he blasted players, other club chairmen and the game's powers-that-be.
He famously announced on-air that Perugia was dumping South Korean star Ahn Jung Wan after his golden goal knocked Italy out of the World Cup in 2002 - but then showed nifty footwork in reversing the decision and praising the World Cup hosts.
The beefy executive also grabbed visibility in 2003 by hiring Gaddafi's son Saadi, head of the Libyan soccer federation, who played a couple of games with the club.
Another incident remembered by Italian soccer fans was when Gaucci claimed in the same year that a blonde Swedish woman would soon be playing in his team. She failed to materialise.
Gaucci pulled out of the running of Perugia in 2004 after the club was relegated to Serie B and left it in the hands of his sons, who became president and vice president.
In July 2005 the club's finances finally gave way and soccer authorities refused to allow it to play in the 2005-06 season. The club was officially closed after a 100-year history and then re-opened under new management and executives. It is now in Serie B.
