Farina offers a hint of hope

SIMONE FARINA is an unlikely football hero.

He was once a member of Roma’s youth team but has spent his whole senior career with small clubs and now plays for Gubbio, a town a few miles north of Assisi, better known for the story of St Francis and the wolf than its football team.

Simone’s one slightly sad claim to fame was being sold for a falsely-inflated transfer fee at the age of 20 in a desperate attempt by Roma to balance their books. Until now that is, because nine years later he has emerged as the good guy in a betting scandal which has exposed a chain of corruption scandals linking Singapore and Switzerland by way of eastern Europe and a gang calling themselves the Zingari (gypsies).