Former Vini Zabú managers will stand trial for alleged extortion & "pay to ride" scheme

In it's last years, team Vini Zabú was hardly even taken seriously by anyone in the cycling community. Although the Italian formation spent over a decade at the ProContinental level, and even celebrated success at the Giro d'Italia with three stage wins and KOM jersey in early 2010s, the downfall from former greats towards the end of the decade was more than evident.

And even though the team pulled through the main COVID-crisis to put together a team for 2021, the roster could be hardly called competitive. Built around the prominent sprinter Jakub Mareczko, most of the lineup consisted of unknown Italians with no prior experience at the level, let alone success at the lower levels that would give much of hope for improvement. Interestingly, of the 2021 roster of Vini Zabú, not more than 4 riders will be active in 2026.

The team finished its last season with very modest 275 UCI points, going down in silence. But UCI had already picked up on worrying patterns within the team. Not only were positive doping tests and convicted dopers (such as former Giro winner Danilo Di Luca) common feature across the team's history...

After all the team even served a 30-day ban in 2021 for two positive doping tests of its riders within 12 months (Matteo Spreafico in 2020 and Matteo De Bonis in 2021), costing them a Giro d'Italia wildcard they were granted despite a worrying team quality.

The story however doesn't end with abuse of illegal performance-enhancing substances. As highlighted before, the sporting criteria were clearly not the most important when Vini Zabú managers Angelo Citracca and Luca Scinto have been putting together their teams. Instead, it appears so that at least some of the team's riders were pressured to pay back some of their wages in order to start in races.

La Nazione reports that riders had alleged "strong psychological pressure and harassing practices exerted by management to induce them to return part of their wages."

Following a preliminary hearing in Pistoia this week, La Nazione has reported that Citracca, the former team manager, has been indicted on charges of extortion against an athlete and attempted extortion against the athlete’s wife and another athlete. De Bonis' former sports director, Davide Del Sarto, has also been indicted for attempted extortion with Citracca.

Lead sports director Luca Scinto, currently manager of the Franco Ballerini junior team, has been indicted for extortion with Citracca and for the receipt of stolen goods, with La Nazione reporting that he was in possession of papers stamped by the local health authority, "which he allegedly used to submit medical requests for performance-enhancing drugs."

Scinto and six riders from the Vini Zabù squad were acquitted of charges of doping during a race in Dubai due to the inadmissibility of the evidence, while the court in Pistoia has deemed that another doping charge falls under the jurisdiction of prosecutors in Forlì.

Citracca was previously suspended for three months in 2017 after the Italian Cycling Federation found him guilty of charging riders to race for his team. The Italian denied any wrongdoing. 

The issue of "pay to ride" schemes in Italian cycling had been exposed in Il Corriere della Sera by journalist Marco Bonarrigo, with Elia Viviani among those to provide evidence against the practice.

The trial of Scinto, Citracca and Del Sarto is scheduled to begin on May 22, 2026.