Day of reckoning in Italy

FIRST the feast, now the reckoning.

The Italian authorities chose Bastille Day to announce the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on leading clubs and top officials.

Relegation for Italian champions Juventus was expected, along with the removal of their two titles, but an additional 30-point penalty means they face a desperate struggle next season to stay out of Italy’s regionally-based Serie C.

Fiorentina face relegation for the second time in four years — plus a heavy 12-point penalty. After fighting their way back from Serie C to Champions League qualification it is a blow which will cause anguish and anger among their fans, who see the club more as a victim than instigator.

For Lazio, just saved from bankruptcy, it’s an uncertain time. They enjoyed a revival last season but will start in Serie B with a seven-point deficit.

Milan have to face the possibility of missing out on European action for two years, as they will start the Serie A 2006-7 season 15 points behind their rivals.

How did it happen? On April 22, Ruggiero Palombo, a member of the editorial board of the Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy’s long-established sports daily, wrote a little article under the heading Football’s Ricucci, Watch out this summer. It was tucked away on page 36, next to the readers’ letters, but it was the first thunder from the storm that was about to break.

“Italy is the country of telephone intercepts,” wrote Palombo.

“Up till now, sport has been largely spared such embarrassments, But just suppose that now, with the title race coming to a close, and in the period of calm preceding the carnival of the World Cup, something similar was to happen in football.”

Two weeks later, Luciano Moggi, director-general of Juventus, was leaving his home for his club’s match against Palermo when he was faced with a dramatic indictment that read as follows: Criminal conspiracy aimed at fraudulent sporting activity and illicit competition with violence and threats.

It soon became clear that Moggi was at the centre of a network of power and influence which had spread throughout the top level of Italian football and which was involved not just in ensuring that Juventus got their way, but that favours would be done for other clubs in which he and his friends had an interest.

Those involved or implicated in the conspiracy included the top men in the Italian football federation, Franco Carraro and Innocenzo Mazzini; Pierluigi Pairetto and Paolo Bergamo, the men responsible for selection and designation of referees; Tulio Lanese, president of the referees’ association; and 10 match officials, including World Cup referee Massimo de Santis.

Teams of magistrates in five cities were eventually to become involved, but the accusations came principally from Naples, where a major investigation into betting and match-fixing has been going on since 2004.

Similar charges were laid against Moggi’s son Alessandro, and three others — Franco Zavaglia, Riccardo Calleri and Chiara Geronzi — all partners in GEA World, Italy’s leading management agency that represented more than 200 players and coaches.

GEA is on the point of being dissolved by the authorities, and evidence of corruption and rigging of the transfer market — and the use of threats and blackmail — are likely to form the basis for a further set of proceedings.

For Gianni Rivera, one of football’s all-time greats, both for Milan and for Italy, and a member of the European Parliament, this is a pivotal moment.

“It is not a question of moralism. There are laws which have to be obeyed. It is because the rules were not respected that we find ourselves in this situation.

“For years in the world of football the rules have not been respected: false passports, false accounts, false transfer deals. People have always pretended these things weren’t happening.”

The proceedings are not over.

Appeals will be heard next week and some of the accused are expected to appeal to the regional civil court, the TAR, which has declared itself ready to intervene.

UEFA has told the Italian football federation that the deadline for deciding which clubs will compete in which divisions is July 25, while political pressures for clemency continue, notably from Milan president and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Interviewed on Thursday, Berlusconi declared: “I am against relegation for any club.

“I am against it because if you relegate a team like Juventus you also damage the interests of third parties. How many teams, through no fault of their own, will be obliged to give up the revenues from playing Juventus?”