It’s good to see that new England football manager Fabio Capello is also a master of another major Italian national sport - filling in tax returns.
According to the Times, there’s a little difference of opinion between Fabio and the Italian tax authorities over a reported £7.5 million. The Guardia di Finanza believe the money’s theirs, while Capello, as befits a nation that produced Dante, Machiavelli and Galileo, thinks the issue is rather more complicated.
In Italy this will be regarded as perfectly normal. Anyone who agrees with their first tax assessment is either mentally unstable or really some other nationality, probably German. In fact there is an elegant solution to this issue. Among Capello’s assets is a company called Sport 3000, which trades in perfumes and cosmetics.
Its leading, not to say only, brands are two lotions named Don Fabio and Fabio Capello. Surely Capello could arrange for a few containers of these fragrances to be deposited with the tax people, in lieu of the trifling cash sum they are chasing.