Sven-Göran Eriksson has been linked to an Italian faith healer, exorcist and “practitioner of white magic”. On Tuesday, the self-described “Baroness” Clara Romano was placed under house arrest by police in the Italian port city of Ancona. She faces accusations of fraud and tax evasion.

According to ANSA, the Italian press agency, investigators found an uncashed cheque made out to her from Eriksson, which she allegedly kept “as a souvenir”. The Manchester City manager and former England head coach may unwittingly have been drawn into the situation as Romano is known to have been in contact with numerous figures in Italian football, particularly at Lazio when the Swede was in charge in the late 1990s.

Massimo Moratti, the Inter Milan president, admitted in 2006 to having been among her clients. An Italian television programme, filmed with a hidden camera, showed her taking credit for uncovering Serie A’s Calciopoli [match-fixing] scandal, which led authorities to strip Juventus of the 2005-06 title and award it to Inter.

“I made Inter win the title [by exposing the Calciopoli scandal through magic],” she said on the programme. “And I told Moratti that I would help them win the scudetto if he supported my charitable project, a retirement community, the ‘City of the Aged’. I wasn’t asking for a lot, five or six million euros [about £4.5 million] ” Moratti said that he never paid Romano such a large sum of money, though he did say that he would be willing to “contribute” to the project.

A phone call to Romano’s home last night was answered by a woman who said that, for legal reasons, she could not comment. Asked whether Eriksson was among Romano’s clients, she replied: “I don’t know, I would not like to say either way, she had very many very important clients.”

According to her website, Romano was a key figure in the fortunes of the Italy side in the 1990s. “I concentrated on Roberto Baggio and he scored within a minute,” she is quoted as saying, referring to Italy’s victory against Nigeria in the 1994 World Cup, when they were a goal down with three minutes left. She claims that she used her magic to protect Italy throughout the competition, but, in the final, it failed her. Italy lost on penalty kicks to Brazil. In newspaper reports at the time, she maintained that her powers were negated by Brazil supporters who performed a “black magic ritual”.

Four years later, in the World Cup finals in France, she reportedly tried to contact Cesare Maldini, the Italy coach, offering her services to remove the “curse” that had been placed on the team, but Maldini ignored her and Italy lost to France in the quarter- finals on penalties. “It’s 100 per cent [Maldini's] fault,” she said.

According to her website, her work is backed by a money-back guarantee should her spells not have the desired effect. She also sells an “individualised” talisman designed by the “Most High Celestial Entity” that offers “protection” at the price of €100 (about £74) and an instructional videotape in which she teaches how to perform various spells and magic rituals.

According to Italian agency reports, she stands accused of preying upon the insecurities of clients, defrauding them by taking money in exchange for useless “magic”. When an Italian documentary crew sent an undercover journalist posing as a terminal cancer sufferer to see her, she allegedly told him that she could guarantee he would be cured if he paid her €6,000 (approximately £4,500).