This could have been the weekend when Inter sealed the Serie A title. Instead, it became one overshadowed by a refereeing scandal. On Saturday, Agenzia Italia broke the news that Gianluca Rocchi, the man responsible for designating match officials for Serie A and Serie B, was under investigation for “complicity in sporting fraud”. He suspended himself from his duties for the National Referees’ Committee for Italy’s top two divisions (CAN) the same day.

So did Andrea Gervasoni, the video assistant referee system (VAR) supervisor for the same body and implicated in the same investigation. Rocchi released a statement through the Italian Referees’ Association saying he wanted to minimise disruption to peers while the legal action took its course, but that he was confident he would “emerge unscathed and stronger than before”. Lawyers for both men suggested they were still unclear about the exact nature of the charges.

Twenty years on from the Calciopoli scandal that led to Juventus being stripped of two Serie A titles and relegated, as well as five other clubs receiving points deductions, Italian football can hardly avoid questions about history possibly repeating. Back then, wiretaps revealed a system of back-channel lobbying to influence refereeing appointments. A headline-grabbing detail from the Milan prosecutor’s latest investigation is the claim Rocchi agreed to assign specific officials for certain Inter games late last season.

He is accused by the prosecutor of meeting with unnamed individuals during the first leg of the Nerazzurri’s Coppa Italia semi-final against Milan in April and accepting a suggestion to have Andrea Colombo take charge of their league game against Bologna. It was purportedly also agreed that Daniele Doveri would referee the second leg of this cup tie but not the eventual final.

Inter never got to play the latter game anyway, after Milan smashed them 4-1 on aggregate. They wound up losing to Bologna, as well, and their manager Simone Inzaghi even blamed the match officials afterwards – arguing Riccardo Orsolini’s injury-time winner could not have happened but for a throw-in being allowed to take place “12 or 13 metres” further forward than where the ball had gone out.

None of which would diminish the seriousness of the allegations, if proven. The mystery of who Rocchi is alleged to have spoken to about these appointments, though, is a central one. Several prominent Italian media outlets, including the broadcaster Sky Sport, reported on Monday that Inter and their directors were not under investigation. The prosecutor’s focus is understood to be solely on the referees.

Interviewed by Sky Sport before his team’s game away to Torino, Inter’s president Giuseppe Marotta said Saturday’s news stories were the first the club had heard of it. “The statements made have amazed us,” he said. “We don’t have a list of referees we like and don’t like, for starters. We know we have acted with absolute correctness, and this fact should help everyone to stay calm.”

Rocchi’s lawyer, Antonio D’Avirro, said it was impossible to even respond properly at this stage to the accusations made against his client. “It’s hard to understand these allegations, because they imply the complicity of several people but none of [the other] people are named … Rocchi was going to every stadium. The prosecutor needs to say who these people were.”

There are other threads to these investigations that do not involve Inter. Another claim by the prosecutor against Rocchi is that he intervened inappropriately in a VAR decision during Udinese’s win over Parma last March. Fabio Maresca, the match referee, had waved play on after Florian Thauvin’s shot hit the arm of a falling Botond Balogh inside the penalty box. Daniele Paterna, the VAR official, reviewed the action and initially told Maresca that he thought the defender’s arm was in a natural position, not extending his frame.

But footage from their booth at Serie A’s International Broadcast Centre shows Paterna suddenly turn towards someone off-screen and appear to mouth the words “it’s a penalty?” After reassessing the position of the player’s arm, Maresca is instructed to conduct an on-pitch review, which ultimately results in an Udinese penalty. Thauvin converts, and his team wins 1-0.

Rocchi is accused of having tapped on the window of the booth to get Paterna’s attention. Gervasoni is alleged to have similarly inserted himself into the decision-making process for a penalty awarded during Salernitana’s Serie B game against Modena that same month.

D’Avirro reiterated on Monday that Rocchi believes he is “the victim of an injustice” and that “these allegations are unfounded”. Gervasoni’s lawyer, Michele Ducci, described his client as “very calm”, questioning why “he is being accused of having intervened in a Serie B match, when he was supervisor for Serie A”. Ducci was reported as saying later on Monday that Gervasoni “should reply” to the prosecutor’s questions at a meeting on Thursday.

On comparisons to Calciopoli, D’Avirro was dismissive, saying: “We are talking about two or three people here, whereas back then it was hundreds of people and tens of clubs.” Others were more circumspect. At a meeting of Italian Football Federation’s board on Monday, Giancarlo Abete, head of the body that organises non-league football in Italy, reminded reporters that “We are at an early stage. It would be a mistake to give judgments on situations we don’t know.”

This story arrives at an especially messy moment for Italian football, with the national federation yet to elect a replacement for president Gabriele Gravina, who resigned after the World Cup qualifying failure. Abete is among the anticipated candidates for the role. The Italian Referees’ Association’s president, Antonio Zappi, meanwhile, is currently appealing against an unrelated 13-month suspension of his own.

Where does this leave the designation of match officials for the season’s remaining weeks? Perhaps it is a blessing that there is little tension left in this season’s Serie A title race. Inter’s hopes of sealing the Scudetto on Sunday were dashed by Napoli’s 4-0 win over Cremonese on Friday, and in the end Christian Chivu’s team could not beat Torino in any case, blowing a 2-0 lead with 20 minutes remaining.

If any title rivals were still in touching distance, a collapse like this would be enough to kick off a full week’s discussion about bottle-jobs and jangling nerves. Instead, with a 10-point cushion and four games left to play, it is extremely likely that they will simply get to celebrate becoming champions at home to Parma this coming Sunday instead.

Still, we ought to take this opportunity to mention the excellent form of Torino’s Giovanni Simeone, who started the comeback for Torino with a well-taken flick past Yann Sommer and has scored five goals in his last eight games. The equaliser arrived from a penalty, scored by Nikola Vlasic, and awarded after a VAR review.

Carlos Augusto had his arm raised when Duván Zapata headed the ball against it, though it was hard to see what else he could have done at such close range. “I’m not going to talk about referees,” said Chivu. “I haven’t done it all year.”

The rest of Italian football may not be so lucky. With investigations only just beginning, this latest refereeing scandal may dominate the agenda for some time yet.