Italian Scandal: The Rash Erupts
Exposure of the extent of the scandal that is rocking Italian football to the core continues, with la Gazzetta dello Sport reporting that the Napoli magistrates investigating alleged wrong-doings by Juventus director Luciano Moggi and associates during the 2004/2005 season have revealed the names of the teams alleged to be involved in illegal activities.
La Gazzetta dello Sport’s first page indicates that, as well as Juventus, the teams currently under investigation are Fiorentina, Lazio, Udinese, Siena, Messina, Arezzo, Crotone, and Avellino.
The report adds that intercepted phone calls would demonstrate three of these teams have been involved in outright match-fixing, which would mean they could be end up being relegated.
The others clubs appear instead to be both accomplices and victims of Moggi’s network of alleged miscreants, but it has not been demonstated that they committed actual crimes.
Other sensitive information coming out of the investigation appears to demonstrate that Franco Carraro, who resigned as chief of the Italian football federation as a result of this scandal two days ago, knew about these wrong-doings, as did the heads of the referee selection committee of the 2004/2005 season, Luigi Pairetto and Paolo Bergamo.
In addition, Massimo De Santis, the referee who will represent Italy at the forthcoming World Cup, seems to have been in charge of the group of referees controlled by Moggi and the player agent company GEA.
For this reason, De Santis’ presence at the World Cup is now in severe doubt