Photo: epa
Clean Feet
Journalists dubbed the series of shocking revelations “Clean Feet” by analogy with the famous trial against the Italian mafia. Even the team’s successful performance on German fields did not relax the judicial will. This season, Italian football will begin badly mangled — it faces a new difficult life after the catastrophe. In essence, everything will have to be rebuilt from scratch. Calcio (as football is called in Italy) burst at the seams, and in the gaps unpleasant, not to say disgusting, quirks of Italian reality came to light. It turned out that the best club in the country in terms of results — Turin's Juventus, multiple Italian champions, including this year — was also an unsurpassed specialist in another area: the shadowy, mafia-like, underhanded — take your pick. If the representatives of justice are to be believed, the leaders of Juventus, like puppet masters, manipulated Italian football as if it were a character in a commedia dell'arte, and it obediently twitched its arms and legs in the directions they wanted. The competing firms — Milan, Lazio, and Fiorentina — are suspected of similar outrages. In addition, federation officials responsible for appointing referees and the agency firm GEA, which represents the interests of about 200 footballers, became involved.
The mutual services that these top figures of Italian football provided to each other were directed and coordinated by Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, who is believed to have been the producer of this whole performance. There is little desire to call all this football. A game loved by billions of people is, after all, a competition of players and teams, not a 'reality show' with a scripted plot. In particular, one of the prosecutors in the current trial, Giovandomenico Lepore, stated that he and his colleagues 'consider suspicious' the results of 19 Serie A matches. Actually, there were significantly more such matches — the exact number no longer matters. What matters is that the best Italian clubs were 'lip-syncing'.
Crime and Punishment
It all started with what usually ends in our country — the publication of recordings of telephone conversations between Moggi and other interested parties, such as Pierluigi Pairetto, the head of the Italian refereeing committee. The conversations were so revealing that Moggi immediately resigned afterwards. 'The world of football is no longer my world,' Moggi said as he left his post. He didn't even realize how right he was. The world of football is now his war, from which he cannot emerge victorious. The transcripts showed that Moggi, through the Italian Football Federation, or more precisely, through certain individuals, influenced the appointment of referees for games. Sometimes Moggi even knew in advance who would officiate the 'Old Lady's' matches in the Champions League. Naturally, he did not need this information to satisfy idle curiosity. Incidentally, GEA belonged to Moggi's son, so here too this man had opportunities for any manipulation.
The series of voluntary resignations did not save the breached dam. The president of the Italian Football Federation, IOC executive board member Franco Carraro, stepped down. The entire leadership of Juventus resigned from their posts, and Gianluca Pessotto, a Juventus player who had just been appointed sporting director, jumped from an office window. He survived, but he is getting worse day by day. Doctors call for faith in miracles, while Pessotto's teammates, who were fighting for World Cup gold during those days, are still in shock. Some of them even asked permission from Italy national team coach Marcello Lippi and flew to Turin during the World Cup to visit Pessotto.
The resigners failed to plug the hole with a finger, like the Dutch boy from the legend. The matter went to court, which could change the well-groomed and well-fed face of calcio. As great lovers of symbols, the Italians chose the Olympic Stadium in Rome for the trial. Where else to punish football fraudsters? Four clubs face catastrophic consequences, in particular, relegation to lower divisions. A fine for each of the accused would be a winning lottery ticket. You can answer for yourself whether you can win the lottery. The lawyers of Juventus no longer argue about the fact of relegation itself, hoping to keep their client team at least in Serie B, the second-strongest league, whereas prosecutor Stefano Palazzi demands not only to send the club to a kind of Turukhan region of local football — Serie C — but also to deduct 6 points from them at the very start of the season. Stefano Palazzi reserved Serie B for the other accomplices. Moreover, Milan, Lazio, and Fiorentina must start the season with a negative points balance: 15 points will be deducted from the Roman and Florentine clubs, and 3 from the Milan club. They are fiercely resisting, assuring that they became victims of a conspiracy by the Juventus bosses, even though not long ago, when it all began, the owner of Milan, also former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, demanded that the Italian championship title be taken away from Juve and given to Milan. Now he himself would like to preserve his political face, which has been rather battered in this squabble, not to mention the possibility of competing for Italian championship medals and European titles.
In the meantime, the bewildered Italian Football Federation has no idea who will represent the country in European competitions this season. If the leading clubs are disqualified, they will have to be hastily replaced by those who finished behind them, but the court's decision may be followed by appeals from the dissatisfied, and the case will inevitably drag on. The federation risks not only being late for Europe but also its own championship, since it is now absolutely unclear who will play in it. Incidentally, the Serie B clubs have already expressed a desire to replace the wrongdoers and are following developments with bloodthirsty interest.
Invisible Help
Similar scandals have occurred before. For example, in Serie A in 1980, the president of Milan, Felice Colombo, and players from Lazio, Avellino, Perugia, Genoa, and Lecce were arrested for match-fixing. The Milan and Lazio teams were then relegated from Serie A. In 1986, points were deducted as punishment for fixed matches from Udinese, Lazio, Foggia, Palermo, Triestina, and Cagliari. In 2000, several players caught in a fixed match between Atalanta and Pistoiese were arrested, and two years ago, Modena had points deducted and several players received warnings.
Similar stories have occurred in other countries—for example, in France, where Bernard Tapie, president of Olympique Marseille, then holder of the Champions Cup, was caught organizing fixed matches. Functionaries were caught with "dirty feet" in Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Romania, but never have such big names and clubs been involved. And yet, promises of "I won't do it again" and deprivation of sweets and pocket money will most likely not suffice. Apparently, we will not see Juventus next season, and perhaps not for several years. However, there is a possibility that the club will cease to exist altogether: the Agnelli family, which finances the club, might refuse to invest money in a low-profit third-tier team. Other conspirators still have a chance to escape the worst and get off with a few resignations and fines, but the cure will be extremely painful.
So, should we order a requiem for calcio? Italian football, like any other football, will not die even from such a cataclysm due to its rare resilience and feverish popularity among the public, but it is unlikely to ever fully clean up. The environment is too favorable for all sorts of fraud. There is the betting pool, sponsor money, revenue from rights sales, and player trading. And the biggest temptation, of course, is the ability to influence the result without legal grounds. In football, you don't even have to risk your health by using doping, as happens in weightlifting or track and field. It's enough to pay the referee and then recoup that money from the aforementioned sources. In football, a single shot, a single referee decision, a single mistake often decides the matter, and working with one mistake is a solid four in the unofficial referee's grade. In other words, you can officiate well and at the same time personally gift victory to one side.
Of course, a school team is unlikely to beat Juventus with the help of a referee, but in a match of equal opponents, the referee often becomes the last straw or the last feather on the camel's back. Sometimes they pay not even for the referee to favor them, but only for him to work honestly. Both sides know: if they don't pay up, they'll have practically no chance. This was indirectly confirmed by another defendant—now former CEO of Juventus, Antonio Giraudo. "In football, things of various kinds happen: people give referees Rolexes, falsify financial reports. But all these things are a way to protect their interests," he said in court. Look at the referee's watch, where he lives, and what car he drives, and you will understand whether football is in order in the country where that referee works. If no one was caught red-handed, it doesn't mean the hand is clean. They just didn't try hard enough to catch. And why would they?
I fear the Italians themselves now don't know what to do with the revealed truth. All these clubs are the elite not only of Italian but also of European football. If the championship loses Juventus, Lazio, Milan, and Fiorentina, who would be interested in it at all? Who would want to watch a match between Avellino and Lecce except the fans of those teams? Television will turn away from football, revenues will fall... In short, is it worth opening this Pandora's box? Especially since Italian footballers, abstracting from all scandals and the subpoenas in their pockets, have proven they are the best in the world... According to Gattuso, their victory is a desire to prove that Italian football is still a great game, not just scandals and revelations.