Tax raid threatens Fabio’s collection

Fabio Capello's first match in charge of the England football team is a friendly, against Switzerland on February 6. But there is nothing amicable about the increasingly serious investigation into his tax affairs back home in Italy. Members of the Guarda di Finanza, the Italian equivalent of Customs and Excise, have raided his home in Legnano, northern Italy, as well as the offices of his accountants and several properties that Capello owns in Milan.

Officers carried off items relating to a £7m tax probe, and the art world is buzzing with the possibility that Capello's famed art collection may soon be the property of the Italian government and available at knockdown prices. Pride of place in Fabio's collection, which is rumoured to be worth more than £10m, goes to works by the Russian artist Mark Chagall, expressionist Wassily Kandinsky and US abstractionist Cy Twombly. Capello’s son and spokesman Pierfillippo swiftly moved to kibosh that possibility, insisting that "no, they cannot take that. All the artwork is private Fabio Capello so they cannot connect it to this investigation."

Of more pressing concern to his father - and his father's new employers, the FA - was the revelation that the Turin prosecutor Marco Gianoglio, who ordered the searches, had obtained the warrants for them in October, six weeks before Capello was named as the England coach. If Gianoglio is able to make a case stick against Capello, the England boss could face up to three years behind bars – making him not much use to England in the build-up to the 2010 World Cup.

The authoritarian Capello seemed undaunted by all the kerfuffle this week, taking in the FA Cup replays this week with England U21 manager Stuart Pearce and Sir Alex Ferguson (above), bete noire of many a national coach.