Calciopoli Just Won’t Go Away
By: Martha | April 13th, 2007
I’m not even going to pretend I understand all the permutations of this or the potential biases that lie behind the various reports, but it was announced this morning that 48 people are likely to face charges as members of a “criminal organization” in connection with, yes, match-fixing. This time, charges will be brought in criminal courts, not the sporting one which handed down last summer’s punishments. And there are several officials in the mix this time: Over the summer, only one referee was named and punished; this time, eight of them (seven referees and one assistant) are under the microscope. Sigh.
Apparently there are a total of 39 games whose results are thought to have been manipulated in some way and, as before, much of the suspicion is falling on the heads of former Juve directors Antonio Giraudo and Luciano Moggi and former referee-appointers Paolo Bergamo and Pier Luigi Pairetto, all of whom are among those expected to face charges. In addition to these old familiar names, there is a new one joining the mix this time around: Messina sporting director Paolo Fabiani — who, as you might expect, is claiming innocence.
All of this, needless to say, will be drawn out for months and months, complete with endless indignant press conferences, various leaked phone conversations and secret love notes, and accusations of bias. Eventually, it’ll all end up in court this summer, resulting in the 405th year in row in which the start of the Serie A season is threatened. Did I mention “sigh?”
A question for those of you who think about such things: How long do you think it will be before Roma and Inter turn up in these discussions? Could they possibly be as clean as they appear so far? You know I’ve got an Inter fan hiding inside of me, but even I find the idea that they were entirely uninvolved in this high-level corruption laughable.
Category: 
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share
      |
Comments
-
I will be the first to admit that I like the drama of Serie A. It’s part of the fun. But I prefer that drama be of the non-legal, courtroom and lawyers and multiple appeals sort.
*sighs*Posted from
United Kingdom
-
I can’t wait till the english press get a hold of this one. :( Time to move on…seriously. It’s only making the leauge look bad.
Posted from
United States -
i agree this happened and those involved got punished some more then others but we have all moved on, why cant they? oh well it keeps things interesting and thats all that matters…..i highly doubt roma or inter are innocent in all of this, they just havent got caught yet….
Posted from
Canada -
I’m not actually a fan of a serie a club but if I was I couldn’t move on. If my club was fixing matches, I wouldn’t go to matches anymore.
I think there are more than the already mentioned clubs/officials involved in the scandal. And if they aren’t directly involved they probably still knew what was going on. This goes for the players, too.Posted from
Germany
Comments are closed
Home 
