Roberto Mancini is to sue Inter Milan for the allegedly defamatory content of the Thursday night statement in which the club announced he was no longer its coach.
Mancini told ANSA Friday he had instructed his lawyers to defend his reputation in court.
He accused the club of ''gravely offending my honour and reputation'' by alluding, in its statement, to wiretaps involving him, club players and officials, and a Milan gangland tailor.
The wiretaps received wide media play in the week before Inter clinched the Serie A title for the third year running - despite the police stressing the intercepted conversations had not sparked any criminal investigation.
Inter did not go into the affair in the statement, which was seen as deliberately vague, referring only to ''the facts that recently emerged in media reports''.
The statement also implied that the club had been forced to sack Mancini because of the way he had allegedly destabilised the club after announcing he was planning to leave at season's end two months before the end of the campaign.
At the time, Inter had a handy lead over second-placed Roma but this dwindled to just one point by the last day of the season.
Friday's Italian press glossed Inter's statement as ''a declaration of war'' in the legal battle brewing over Mancini's contract, which was recently extended for four years.
If club owner Massimo Moratti can substantiate the claims with statements from players, the press speculated, he might be able to avoid paying the coach an estimated 30 million euros in unearned income and compensation.
Mancini's riposte Friday showed he is determined to take advantage of Inter's allegations and wring an even bigger sum out of oilman Moratti, experts here said.
Mancini's lawyer, Stefano Gagliardi, told ANSA that any move by Inter linked to the coach's shock announcement in March would not be valid ''because the national contract states such action should have been taken within ten days''.
He added that Mancini would file a suit for damages to his image caused by the club communique, noting that it was broadcast across the soccer world.
Thursday's statement put an official end to Mancini's four-year term at Inter in which he became its most successful coach for thirty years.
Aside from the three scudetti, he also won two Italian Cups and two Italian SuperCups - but failed to translate domestic success into European glory.
Speculation over Mancini's future has been rife since Inter's Champions League elimination by Liverpool in March when the coach dropped his 'quit' bombshell.
A quick U-turn did little to stop the rumours that he would be replaced, probably by ex-Chelsea boss Jose' Mourinho.
Portuguese news reports say Mourinho has already signed a massive three-year contract and has been learning Italian for months.
Mancini has been linked to Mourinho's old job at Stamford Bridge but his agent has denied the reports.
