London Times Cruelly Disrespects Calciopoli

By: Martha | August 23rd, 2007

The Brain Trust In their new list of the 50 Greatest Sporting Scandals, the London Times (you may recall earlier discussion of their Summer o’ Lists) has the audacity to rank Calciopoli seventh, a slight which La Gazetta dello Sport does not take lying down. The headline of their article reads “The Times subs Moggiopoli,” and the first paragraph angrily derides the placing of the scandal behind such minor events as Ben Johnson’s Olympic doping and the madness at this year’s Tour de France. The nerve!

The Times’ description of the scandal comprises a short, two-sentence paragraph containing only the most basic details, so the juicy drama is inherently missing from the piece — is that a snub? Hopefully poor, endlessly disrespected Luciano Moggi will notice that Calciopoli is in fact the number one footballing scandal, ahead of such things as The Hand of God, Marseilles’ 1993 match-fixing and Glen Hoddle’s firm pronouncement that the handicapped are being punished by God. Surely being ranked above Maradona (who appears on the list not once but twice) counts for something, even if it is only for being more shockingly corrupt.

For those of you who can’t be bothered to read the list for yourselves, the top scandal is a cricket episode from 1968 with political and racial implications (take that, Moggi), which beat out the Black Sox scandal of 1919. (International recognition like that just makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?)

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Category: Juventus, Rumors & News, Serie A

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Anthony

pfft...only 25 years? I'm 27, and my friends and myself said we could die when the White Sox won the World Series.
Martha

Ady, thanks for the kind words, though relying on me is NEVER a good idea. (I can't believe you can here the announcers from your house. That sounds like a dream -- I would have died for that when I was a kid.

I lived in St Louis my whole life (apart from college) until two years ago, and my family has had season tickets for the past six or seven years, so I got to see all the McGwire madness. (I kept thinking about how my kids would be watching this stuff on TV years later, and I could tell them I was there. The shine's gone off it rather a lot now.)

Kevin you make me feel incredibly old being born in 1982. Have mercy.
Ady

Kevin, I guess you were destined to follow the Cards and Azzurri. It's so exciting to watch your team win the World Series too. Although, for myself, I hope for more often than once every quarter century!
kevin

I live in St. Louis and saw a few playoff games last year. I have a little history on my side.. I was born in 1982, the year the cardinals and azzurri both won. Ironically, they did it again last year.
Ady

Oh Martha, I need 48 hours in a day! There are so many things I love and don't have time to keep up with properly. I would love to really follow baseball rather than just catching snippets here and there. And we need to find time for another game this September. It's inexcusable - when the wind is calm, we can actually here the announcers in the stadium from our backyard.

I am actually in awe of the way you can keep up with so many Serie A news sources and distill the info here. And totally reliant upon you!

And you were actually AT those games?! *weeps* I saw most of them on TV and it was just amazing. I really loved McGwire and I adore LaRussa, so it meant so much.

As for the hearings, MCGwire wasn't the only one who sounded bad. I'm not sure what else they could have said though. If they had come clean, they would have been pressured to name names. Ugh. Such a mess.
Martha

Ady, I grew up obsessed with baseball and have never been able to shake it. I was at those final games in St Louis and saw almost every one of his last 10 home runs. Most insane, emotional sports experience I've probably ever had.

I could hardly watch the hearings, it killed me to see how pathetic and transparent McGwire was (just another sign of the depth of Balco) -- I hope whoever told him to take that approach was fired long ago.
Ady

*sigh* Well Martha, I've been following baseball for a bit longer than football and, well, it's all in English... And I actually listened to the congressional hearings on Balco/steroids. Also, McGwire is one of our own home grown boys ~~before he was wooed away by the monied teams~~ and I watched him break the home run record with tears in my eyes, so I am particularly distressed by that one.

I noted with interest the number of recent scandals in that list and I wonder if there really have been more scandals of late or if some of the older ones have passed out of people's memories.
Martha

Ady, I'm loving the baseball talk, and I think you're right -- if they made this list five years from now, Balco would be in the top five, if not the top two or three.
Ady

Well I'm pleased to see they got the White Sox scandal up there, but to read it you would think Shoeless Joe acted on his own.

And Balco needs to be higher than 16th - probably up there vying with Calciopoli - given that it has thrown into question the achievements of McGwire, Sosa, Bonds and many others.

I do love that La Gazetta dello Sport has turned Calciopoly into an an all-Moggi affair.
rickard

This is hilarious. You go, Gazetta!
Anthony

Even more to be a White Sox fan, Chicagoan, and American