Have you ever heard accounts of match fixing stemming from players within this era? Have you ever heard any player from this era come out to insinuate that calcio is corrupt, stating that you just let thing slide for the bigger clubs? I'm not going to believe this nonsense if Alexi Lalas is the only player to say this subject to the history constrait.
No offence Andy, But did you even follow italian football in that time, did you read the italian press etc etc, have you looked into the cases presented at that time.
Corruption in italian football through the 70's, 80's and 90's was rife. New stories, accusations and charges every week. Most would agree it was worse than we see today or we saw in calciopoli.
Whether you look back to the more famous cases...Juventus champions cup bribery affair of 73, Azzurri bribery in 74, Paolo rossi in 80, Roma kicked out of europe for bribery in 86, torino's "prostitutes for match officials " scandal of 92, The "phantom transfer" affair of 94, 96's "missing millions" TV rights scandal or to the less publicised (outside of italy) numerous referee scandals of the mid 90's the incredible amount of tampered with registration mandates of the last 15 years,the simple fact that 90% of all serie A teams of the last 15 years has at one time or another faced some form of corruption charge or just the continual allegations throughout this period... anyone that has truly followed italian football in this generation can only truthfully come to one conclusion.
Whether thats bad, whether its any different to anywhere else, whether its acceptable, whether it takes anything away from what goes on upon the field of play etc is a matter of opinion... But to deny it is pure folly.