The timing couldn't have been worse. Less than a month before the World Cup is set to kick off in Munich, Italy has been rocked by a football scandal of epic proportions. Obviously, Neapolitan prosecutor Giovandomenico Lepore isn't much of a fan or so it seems. Otherwise, perhaps he and his cohorts might've decided to wait a month or two before making these allegations public.
But then again, it was probably pretty tough to hide what's been going on behind the scenes for more than a year now, especially after the entire Juventus board of directors resigned on Friday upon learning that their club, and in particular its General Director Luciano Moggi were at the center of controversy.
According to Lepore, club officials, federation officials, officials who assign referees to matches, referees and a journalist are among those under investigation. Along with Napoli and Fiorentina, Milan and Juventus are part of an investigation into "criminal association" and "sporting fraud", in which 19 matches are being examined on suspicion that results were fixed. In total, 41 people are under investigation.
Perhaps no one is under more scrutiny than Luciano Moggi, the former General Director of Juventus, who resigned Sunday after his club won the Scudetto for a record 29th time. His entire board had already resigned two days earlier. And if found guilty, I hope they throw the book at Moggi. The things he's been accused of make my stomach turn as both a fan of the game and as a referee. I cannot imagine such behind-the-scenes arm-twisting as that which Moggi has been charged with.
Investigators who tapped his phone for a year leaked some of the transcripts. In one he is heard telling Paolo Dandarini, who was about to referee a Juventus match: "You know what you have to do. Make sure you see everything - even that which isn't there." He also made frequent calls to Pierluigi Pairetto, joint head of the Italian referees' association, to influence the choice of officials, and is heard upbraiding Mr Pairetto - once for providing a referee who allowed a goal against Juventus, another time for not securing a referee Mr Moggi had asked for. The official was terribly apologetic and promised to do better in the future.
One of Mr Moggi's favourite tactics, it is alleged, was to ensure that top players in other teams got yellow cards, so that they were suspended when they were due to face Juventus. But the most direct grip he exercised on results was through the players. Mr Moggi's 32-year-old son Alessandro is the boss of GEA, the biggest and most important players' agency in Italy, which controls 200 professional players and 24 coaches. When Juventus played Siena last month, seven of the players in the Siena line-up were on GEA's books: Juventus won the game 3-0. GEA is the subject of a separate criminal investigation.
In yet another incident, Moggi had the audacity to essentially kidnap the three match officials by locking them in their dressing room after Juventus had gone down in defeat and for not assuring a Juve victory beforehand. It's like something from a "Sopranos" episode.
Now, like many football fans, I rather enjoyed reading the true tale of a small Italian club that made it into Serie B several years back. "The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro" by Boston writer Joe McGinniss recounted the author's year with the club. I found his behind-the-scenes look at life in Italian football to be very intriguing, but was very disappointed at the end when McGinniss destroyed almost all of his relationships because he was appalled by the fact that the team threw a match in order to help their final opponents to attain promotion to Serie A.
I thought it wrong that the author should become so personally involved with his story. But in retrospect now, I understand his disgust and share in his disappoint at the dishonesty that seems to be so prevalent in Italian football. But I guess when it comes right down to it, top-level football is no different than any other business. It's about money. And with the stakes as high as they are corruption seems like an easy way to protect your investment.
Ironically though, this scandal has rocked public stock in Juventus. Trading of its shares were suspended during the trading day last Friday when its price was falling at a precipitous rate, dropping more than 25%.
It'll be interesting to see how this affects the team next year. Assuming they aren't relegated to Serie B after being found guilty of these allegations, I wonder if their on-field performance will decline just like the value of its stock.
As a result of this multi-faceted scandal, the Italian football federation Saturday withdrew the World Cup accreditation of a well-known referee after he was also implicated. Referee Massimo De Santis, who I believe is a cop ironically, will be watching the World Cup from home rather than working at some of the matches. The two assistants slated to work with De Santis in Germany were also implicated and now will also not be featured at next month's quadrennial tournament.
The Vatican newspaper, meanwhile, described the football scandal as an offense to sports and to its values, an opinion that I'm sure most of us share with the Holy See. The former team president of Bologna, Giuseppe Gazzoni Frascara, said the scandal is almost enough to make one ashamed to be Italian. He even questioned whether the Italian team should even play in the world championship. However, unlike the domestic league, I don't think the referees at the World Cup will be so easily corrupted, so that would seem rather harsh in my estimation.
Maybe somebody who should stay home, however, would be Juve's goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon who has been accused of betting on football matches, which is strictly prohibited. You don't want a guy like that on your team if he's placing wagers on the U.S. beating the Azzurri. That could make for a nice payday after all.
In the last major scandal to hit Italian football, AC Milan and Lazio were demoted to Serie B in 1980 following a match-fixing and illegal gambling investigation. But maybe sending the guilty squads down two divisions to Serie C1 would seem like a more just punishment. This might ensure that clubs never-again engage in such blatantly unsporting tactics in the future.
**I'd like to come clean here and admit that much of the above inforation has been lifted directly from other articles produced by, among others, The Independent, Voice of America, and Al Jazeera.
Aaron--as you mentioned I did get personally involved with the Castel di Sangro team in '96-'97. I saw most of the players six days a week, ate two meals a day with them, watched them train, traveled to matches with them, saw two of them die, saw one get arrested, lived next door to the manager and rooted my heart out for them.
How could anyone not get personally involved under such circumstances?
My reaction to their throwing their last match so
Bari could get promoted to Serie A may have been extreme, but it was genuine. In fact, it could not have been any other way. As you know, soccer excites passion, even among fans who only see the players from afar. Over ten months, they came to seem brothers to me: caring big brothers, who never failed to concern themselves with my well-being.
My anger at the end was heightened by knowing that the fix arose from the team being owned by the corrupt Signor Rezza and run by his sleazebag son in law Gravina. They are the ones who forced to players to throw the match. None of them did it for money. They did it because if they didn't, their careers would be over. The fear was palpable. It was, as they told me, "il sistema"--the system. As an American, I failed to understand the degree of pressure they were under to do as told.
As in Serie B, so in Serie A.
From my first weeks in Italy in 1994, I heard from people in the game that certain referees were either bribed or threatened in order to make sure Juventus won.
I learned their names. And as I've watched over the past twelve years, I've seen it happen so often that it's become a sick joke.
Paparesta and De Santis were among the worst and most obvious, but only the tip of the rotten icebereg. (What a farce that De Santis was chosen as the only Italian referee to work the World Cup.
Obviously, a reward--now revoked, thank goodness--for services rendered, and to be rendered.)
And the orders always came from Moggi. I don't think I met anyone in Italian soccer who didn't know he was corrupt and corrupting. But they winked and went along. You go along to get along. It's la sistema. And Juve was so powerful.
As was Milan, especially with Berlusconi as both their owner and Prime Minister.
In my opinion, the single worst incident to date in this still erupting scandal is the allegation that Cannavaro--captain of the Italian National Team that will play in the World Cup next month--agreed to play less than his best for an entire season with Inter, so Moggi and Juve could buy him cheaper. (You'll notice that investigators searched Cannavaro's home today--the only Italian player so far to have his home searched.)
A search does not equal guilt, and I believe absolutely in innocent until proven guilty, but I also have come to understand the dynamics of Italy to some degree, and Italian soccer to a greater degree, and the odor of corruption has emanated from it for years.
Why do you think Inter has so many foreign players, often starting an all-foreign eleven?
Because their president, Moratti, is clean and he knows that Moggi can't control the foreigners because they are free to pick up their kits and go home. And he's retaining Mancini as manager because Mancini is also clean. Like Baggio was clean. Like Totti is clean. There are great players in Italy who are also brave men and defy il sistema (quietly, of course: these things are never spoken of above a whisper) and I hope that this investiagion will embolden more of them to tell the Moggis of the country to buzz off.
With Berlusconi no longer Prime Minister, there is hope. The new Prime Minister, Prodi, speaking today of the soccer scandal said, "The crisis of ethics has entered every sector of public life."
Juventus in Serie B for a year is a slap on the wrist. That should be only the start. The breadth and depth of the rot that has just begun to be exposed has stunned even many cynics, who've been whispering about it for years. This is a chance for the whispers to turn into shouts.
Follow the money: if the guilty escape with their pocketbooks and earning capacities intact the whole thing will turn out to be smoke without fire. Smoke as in smoke and mirrors. Smoke as in smokescreen.
The questions that need to be asked and answered now are: How did Moggi reach the point where he could contaminate the entire sport? Who wanted him there? Why? Are they the same people who wanted Berlusconi as Prime Minister? Do Italian citizens care enough to do anything about it?
They might. Corruption in government is taken for granted. But the devastation by corruption of il calcio--particularly of the sacred Serie A, and especially of Italy's "national and international team," Juventus--may finally stir the souls of the masses.
Or it may just all go away, leaving il sistema intact and nothing but old newspaper headlines behind.
At least nobody tells Bruce Arena whom to choose for the World Cup squad. And knowing him, even if only slightly, I'm sure that if they tried his furious response would echo in their ears for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, Italy has been through so much for so long that the capacity for outrage seems exhausted.
Joe McGinniss
Posted by: joe mcginniss | May 19, 2006 at 09:24 PM