[Dark Horse]

More related to Juventus than the national team, but not exactly the type of stuff you want on your mind when preparing for the biggest tournament. Goal keeper could be out.

This reminded me why I stopped betting on soccer some years ago. Too close of an encounter with Italy's Serie A.

Scandal hits Italy World Cup plans

Match-fixing, threats of violence, blackmail, illegal betting, coercion - that's the background to Italy's World Cup build-up on the final day of their season

Barbara McMahon in Rome and Kevin Buckley in Milan
Sunday May 14, 2006
The Observer

Italian football is in meltdown with the World Cup less than a month away. Four Serie A clubs stand accused of match-fixing, a referee and his assistants have been pulled off the World Cup list while being investigated for corruption, the Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon may also miss the tournament as a result of a betting scandal, and several of the most senior figures at club and national level have been forced to resign.

Italy's national game has been shaken by a barrage of allegations, with prosecutors in five Italian cities - Rome, Turin, Naples, Parma and Perugia - investigating claims of coercion of referees, threats and blackmail, illegal betting, false accounting and even a report of holding match officials against their will.
If Buffon is found guilty of illegal betting - phone taps reveal the Juventus number one wagered as much as €500,000 in a single bet in a series totalling over €2 million - he could be kicked out of the Italy squad, which is due to be named tomorrow. Buffon was questioned by magistrates in Turin yesterday and his lawyer said that the bets were placed before the autumn of 2005, when new regulations came into force. The goalkeeper made no comment.

Italy's coach, Marcello Lippi, has been forced publicly to deny claims that callups to the national side have been influenced by business interests. And the national team's captain, Fabio Cannavaro, has been implicated in further claims of skulduggery. Cannavaro is said to have deliberately underperformed at his former club, Inter, in order to facilitate a move to Juventus two years ago.

Italy's FA are rudderless after their top two officials were forced to stand down, and prosecutors in Rome and Naples are probing GEA World, the management company that handles more transfers in Italy than any other. GEA World is run by Alessandro Moggi, son of Luciano Moggi, the man at the centre of the investigation. Moggi senior quit as general manager of Juventus after being heavily implicated.

The authorities are looking into allegations of abuse of GEA's 'dominant position' in football and allege that both father and son used threats and violence to conduct their business. Moggi and Juventus chief executive Antonio Giraudo are additionally under investigation for allegedly locking a referee and his two assistants in a changing room at the end of Juve's match against Reggina in November 2004 and haranguing them for having failed to support the team, who lost the match 2-1. Coincidentally Juventus return to Reggina today needing a draw to clinch their 29th league title.

What began last weekend in Turin with a ripple of rumours about manipulation of match officials rapidly became a tidal wave of scandal that by last Thursday had swept away the entire board of Juventus. If the club win the scudetto this afternoon, celebrations will be muted. Angry fans protested against Moggi outside the club's headquarters on Friday, knowing that if the club are convicted of 'sporting fraud' they could be relegated and even have past titles rescinded.

The Turin tapes - from magistrates' telephone taps - implicated Moggi. When evidence from the tapes was leaked to the press, news emerged of the parallel undercover investigations in other cities. Fifty-eight people are under formal investigation, including 20 referees and assistant referees, a dozen club officials, eight journalists and 10 players' agents. Massimo De Santis, one of the two Italian referees due to officiate in Germany, was withdrawn by the FA yesterday, though he has strenuously denied any wrongdoing. 'I am willing to cooperate because I have done nothing wrong,' he said.

In addition, the claims are highly embarrassing for the wealthy car manufacturing Agnelli family, which owns Juventus and whose members have pointedly distanced themselves from the lurid revelations. Juventus' share price went down because of the crisis, crashing by 10 per cent on Thursday.

The Agnelli family - involved in another recent scandal when heir to the empire Lapo Elkan was hospitalised after overdosing on cocaine in the Turin apartment of two transsexual prostitutes - instructed the Juventus board to resign en masse on Thursday afternoon. There have been calls for a parliamentary inquiry into the scandal, which is likely to happen. 'There needs to be a total clean-up, to clear out what's bad,' said Francesco Totti, the Roma and Italy striker.

Only last Tuesday Franco Carraro, the FA chief, memorably told reporters: 'I have complete faith in the judiciary. I am calm.' That evening, tape transcripts were leaked suggesting that Carraro and Moggi worked closely together. The following morning Carraro quit, soon followed by refereeing directors Pier Luigi Pairetto and Luigi Bergamo. They had apparently been heard discussing with Moggi which referees to allocate to Juventus games, and joking over expensive watches received as gifts.

Bergamo was also dumped from Uefa's refereeing committee. Carraro's deputy, Innocenzo Mazzini, then quit, leaving Italy with no top official to represent their FA in Germany.

Naples magistrates are looking into 19 Serie A matches last season, when Juventus won the title under Fabio Capello, the coach who is increasingly likely to exercise a contractual option to end his contract a year early. 'I want to get out of this country,' is the message Capello has been circulating recently. Investigators have used sanctioned phone taps for more than a year in probing Moggi, who is believed to be at the epicentre of a secretive group who 'constructed an association to influence the entire system of Italian professional football in the interests of Juventus and other companies'. This is a reference to GEA World.

Finance police in Rome - apparently unbeknown to the Naples investigators - had themselves been tracking the activities of GEA World for months. It is alleged that GEA World intimidated players by warning them they needed to be on the agency's books if they wished to move to a big club. Alessandro Nesta, who transferred from the financially crippled Lazio to AC Milan three years ago, ditched his agent to join GEA.

Most of Moggi's enemies appear too shellshocked to rejoice at his downfall. But one man who was cheering was Luciano Gaucci, ex-owner of Perugia, who feels vindicated for his past criticism of Moggi's methods. News of a fat man in a Hawaian shirt drinking champagne on a tropical beach provided the most surreal moment of a strange week: Gaucci himself is currently in Santo Domingo as a fugitive from Italian justice over financial charges relating to his former club.

Reflecting the fear and suspicion throughout the upper echelons of Italian football, a well-placed source insisted on anonymity yesterday when he said: 'If true, this could be the most serious scandal in the entire history of Italian football. The sheer extent of alleged corruption is much deeper than any of us ever imagined. It shows it is not a one-off case, it is systemic.

'But, at the same time, this represents a great opportunity to clean things up once and for all.' 'If true, this could be the most serious scandal in the history of Italian football' Under investigation: a police officer at Juventus HQ and referee De Santis; fugitive Gaucci; main man Luciano Moggi; and goalkeeper Buffon.