This summer has seen scandals past and present dominate calcio. It started with Scommesopoli, which was born after it emerged that unusual betting figures made consistent returns in certain matches, including an Inter-Lecce game. Sixteen people were arrested on suspicion of influencing matches, with others – including football legend Giuseppe Signori – under house arrest.
But now even Scomessopoli has been dwarfed by the re-emergence of Calciopoli. The latest investigation has caused the return of the match-fixing ghosts of 2006, and they seem to bear the message that Inter was one of the main guilty parties, perhaps even more so than Juventus. I Serpenti may yet be stripped of their 2005/06 Scudetto.
In the midst of all the court proceedings and investigations it is difficult to remember that once upon a time, Italian football was played on a pitch. So what would calcio be like if it were scandal free? How would it affect players, clubs, fans and perceptions?
First of all, an obvious proclamation. Inter would almost certainly not have won the 06/07 and 07/08 Scudetto. Aside from the additions of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Patrick Vieira (deals that wouldn’t have even taken place in this hypothetical situation as they both came from demoted Juventus) the Nerazzurri team consisted of the same perennial third-place finishers of pre-Calciopoli notoriety.
This changed when Jose Mourinho arrived at the San Siro and turned them into European champions, but it is unlikely that he would have taken charge if they were still the second or third best team. So it’s not at all far-fetched to say that Inter would still be in around the same position that they were in before Calciopoli had the scandal not occurred.
There is no doubt that Calciopoli crushed Juventus. The punishment handed out to them for contacting refereeing organisations to select favourable referees for their matches was to start the season in Serie B with their 04/05 and 05/06 titles revoked. The prospect of a season in calcio purgatory was too much for many of their star players: Ibrahimovic, Vieira, Fabio Cannavaro, Emerson and Gianluca Zambrotta all left Turin.
However, it was actually the scandal that persuaded one of their current heroes to stay at Juventus. Gianluigi Buffon was looking for a new challenge after winning three league titles with the Bianconeri but, once Juve’s fate was announced, he decided not to leave. His agent announced: “Serie B is a division he has never won and he wants to try to do this.” Later Milan’s vice-president Adriano Galliani revealed that it was Buffon’s decision to stay that prompted Milan to keep hold of Nelson Dida.
The 1980 Totonero scandal involved two men, Alvaro Trinca and Massimo Cruciano, bribing players to fix matches so that they could bet on the result they had agreed. Footballers who were found to have taken bribes were banned for two years, and the standout player among them was one Paolo Rossi.
The ban ended just in time for the 1982 World Cup in Spain. Rossi was picked to play, and after an appalling first couple of games, he produced the performance of his life when he scored a hat-trick against Brazil, dumping them out of the tournament. He then scored in the semi-final and final as Italy proceeded to become world champions.
Yet had Totonero never occurred and Rossi not been suspended for two years, his World Cup could have been one to forget, if he even made the squad. Don’t see what I mean? That’s understandable; prior to the ban, Rossi had been scoring for fun, with 60 goals in 94 matches for Venezia and nearly a goal every two games for Perugia. In the World Cup he merely resumed where he left off, with goals galore.
But Rossi was a fragile player and his goalscoring feats can be divided clearly – before the World Cup, and after. He never found the potency that had made him so famous. His body could not withstand the pressures of regular football, and knee injuries blighted his later career and forced him to retire at 31. He scored only 23 goals in three seasons at Juventus.
The break from football from 1980 to 1982 probably did him good. He came back from the ban refreshed and, after a few games getting match practice, he was ready to wreak havoc among defences in Spain. If he had been playing in those two years, his body may have succumbed to injury even before the World Cup.
So how have the scandals down the years affected the fans? These supporters can be divided into two groups: followers of Italian clubs and outsiders who like football but don’t support a team in the peninsula.
There’s no doubt that the scandals must irk tifosi of the first group. Ignoring the ones actually involved in betting scams, supporters must hate the fact that off the field events could render all your team’s achievements on the pitch null and void.
Many international football fans are aware of the corruption in calcio but are not deterred from following Serie A because of it. That is not surprising: often their own country’s leagues are not without illegal activity, so they are accustomed to it. But even the fans from northern Europe and North America, who are based in places that are relatively free from footballing corruption, don’t seem to mind the Italian scandals too much. Granted, they generally look down on calcio, but that is because they consider it slow and unexciting, not because of the corruption.
I know this from first-hand experience. The immediate reaction of people who learn that I like the Italian game is one of scorn. ‘Italian football’s shit. It’s boring and defensive’ is the most common reaction. And this view isn’t restricted to the playground, as Sky Sports have shown.
If football in Italy were to clean up its act it would no doubt benefit the fans of the clubs involved. But other football followers, especially those from countries north of Italy, would probably go on disliking calcio regardless.
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