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[JTW Analysis] Italian Version of a Sport Scandal: “Calciopoli” |
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Friday, 29 July 2011 By Dario Cristiani
The decision by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) that Inter Milan will be allowed to keep the 2006 Serie A title, announced on the 18th of July 2011, have sparked new controversies concerning one of the greatest scandals in Italian football ever. Juventus and Fiorentina, two of the teams involved in 2006 scandal, released statements asking for clarity on the situation but it is likely that further controversies will be aroused in the coming months. The recent discussions on football scandal in Turkey recalls Italian Calciopoli which was another instance that the understanding of justice and peoples’ expectations on sports’ justice highly differ.
The match-fixing scandal which engulfed Italian football erupted in 2006 but its effects are visible until now. Italian football has been often affected by scandals. The first scandal ever in 1927, when Turin was stripped of the title won in that league – the first organized on a national basis – on allegations of match-fixing in the “derby” with Juventus of that season, ended 2-1. The latest scandal concerns the maxi investigation on betting, involving several protagonists of Italian football in the past two decades, such as Beppe Signori and Cristiano Doni. However, 2006 Calciopoli likely represents the worst scandal ever in Italian football history.
Calciopoli 2006 and 2011
The story begins in the early years of the new century. In 2004, prosecutors from Public Prosecutor’s office of Naples started an investigation concerning the statements of some senior officers and presidents concerning another scandal affecting Italian football in 2003, Calcioscommese, involving players illegally fixing matches for betting purposes.
Earlier, the Public Prosecutor’s office of Turin, using phone tapings for an investigation regarding doping allegations at Juventus, intercepted some conversations between Luciano Moggi, Juventus’s general manager at that time, and the head of referees Pierluigi Pairetto and also other referees. Juventus is by far Italy's most popular and successful club, therefore such investigations represented a true turning point in the history of Italian football. Further investigations and phone tapings lead to discovering also how other key figures in Italian football were used to put pressure on referees to favour certain clubs. Juventus was clearly at the core of this scandal but it was not the only team involved. AC Milan , the team owned by Berlusconi’s family, Lazio, Fiorentina and a couple of minor teams, Reggina and Arezzo, were also involved.
The scandal led to Juventus being stripped of the league titles they had won in 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 seasons. The team was also relegated to Serie B (Italian equivalent of Bank Asya 1. Lig in Turkey) and deducted 30 points for 2006/2007 season. However, this latest decision was later changed and the punishment was reduced to 9 points. Juventus, however, won immediate promotion back to the Italian football elite as many of its most representative players, such as the 2006 World Champions Gianluigi Buffon and Alessandro Del Piero, decided to remain in the team spending one season in the Italian Serie B. The scandal also led Milan to be deducted by 30 points for 2005/2006 and 8 points in the following season as final punishment. Fiorentina and Lazio were deducted 30 points for 2006/2007 and respectively 15 and 3 points for the following season. Several key figures of Italian football were also convicted in the sport trial, apart from Luciano Moggi and other members of the management team. Diego Della Valle, Andrea Della Valle and Sandro Mencucci for Fiorentina, Leonardo Meani and Adriano Galliani for AC Milan and several between referees and linesmen were sentenced as guilty. As a result of these punishments, the league table of that season was completely changed and Inter Milan was retrospectively awarded the title. These decisions were taken under the rule of Guido Rossi in the FIGC. Rossi was named emergency head of the FIGC in May 2006 to organize the various punishments. Rossi nominated also the committee of three “SAGGI” which had the task to assign the 2006 title. Given his professional links with the some companies connected to Inter Milan, Rossi has been harshly criticized for the role he played.
The trial concerning sport law ended in 2006, but the penal trial continued in Naples. During the different hearings, new phone tapings have emerged which were not considered relevant at the first instance in the sport trial in 2006.
In April 2007, what has been defined as “Calciopoli-bis” started. The prosecutors from Naples highlighted the existence of a private phone line used by Moggi to discuss with referees. The first sentence arrived in late 2009, for those who required what in Italian law is called “rito abbreviato”, which can be roughly translated as “fast-track judgement”. During one of the hearings, Moggi gave to the judges some phone tapings - about 74 - which were not considered at first instance and that, according to Moggi's lawyers, would have changed the overall scenario.
These phone tapings regard largely Inter Milan, as there were some tapings, above all the one defined the “La madre di tutte le telefonate” (the mother of all phone calls) in which Giacinto Facchetti, President of Inter Milan and one of the most representative players of Italian football ever and who died in 2006, was speaking to Paolo Bergamo, head of the referees jointly with Pairetto. Hereby, the accusation regards the alleged pronunciation of the name of Pierluigi Collina by former Inter Milan President, asking Bergamo to put Collina in the referees draw. However, later investigations clarified and confirmed that Bergamo was the one talking about Collin and not Facchetti.
Because of these new phone tapings, in 2010, Juventus presented an enquiry to Coni, FIGC and its federal court to cancel the decision of assigning the title of winner of the league 2005/2006 to Inter Milan. Juventus said that chats between team executives and referees were common business in Italian football system, therefore Stefano Palazzi, FIGC federal prosecutor, started a new investigation concerning these facts. The investigation lead Palazzi to describe a very critical picture against Inter Milan. Palazzi accused the team of having illegal contacts with referees, aimed at and said that they might also have been implicated at the time had all wiretaps been examined by police. Specifically, the allegations concerned former Inter Milan president Facchetti violating the ethics of football and attempted to provide an unfair advantage to the Nerazzurri team. These allegations had a particular emotional impact on Inter Milan fans as well as on Italian football in general as Facchetti is considered one of the greatest symbols of Inter Milan history as well as one of the most honest and pure figure of Italian football ever. Massimo Moratti, President and owner of Nerazzuri, has been very quick in defending both his team and his predecessor, calling the charges brought by Palazzi as offensive, serious and silly. On the official website of the club, he stated that Inter doesn't accept these allegations and those about the involvement of Facchetti, who is no longer with us.
On the 18th of July 2011, a motion by the FIGC's federal council stated that there was no judicial basis for the revocation of the 2006 Scudetto. This motion passed by 22 votes to one at a meeting in Rome, with two abstentions. Juventus strongly criticized this decision. La Gazzetta dello Sport, the most important Italian sport newspaper, reported that the team will appeal such a position by taking its fight to the high court of justice at the Coni.
Sport, Public Law and Public Order
Calciopoli scandal is likely the best example of the interaction between ordinary justice and sport justice and the strong differences existing among them. From a strictly legal point of view, in Italy, the relationship between these two orders is regulated by the principle of autonomy, apart from the issues relevant for the ordinary justice. The 280/03 law states in its Art.1 that the (Italian) Republic recognize and supports the autonomy of the national sport system, as articulation of the international Sport justice under the IOC (International Olympic Committee). The trial concerning sport law is different from the “normal” one, as it is considered of “domestic justice”, therefore internal to system of sport law. Specifically, differently from what is prescribed normally, the burden of proof is for the person under investigation and he should prove his innocence. This is the opposite of what happen in the penal law, as the persona under investigation is considered innocent until the final degree of judgment is sentenced.
Clearly, a major issue concerning these two different types of law concern their timetables. The sport judicial trial was far quicker than the normal one. Generally speaking, the current Italian judiciary system runs very slow. The European Court of Justice routinely sanctions Italy due to its drawn-out legal processes. As sport has a different judiciary system but also different needs, the trials were far faster. The first decision arrived by the 14th of July 2006, the appeal result by the 25th of July 2006 while the last and final decision was taken on the 24th of November 2006. Clearly, such a velocity could impact the depth of these trials, as all the proofs and the debates would not be as accurate as they should be. However, greater and most urgent needs of getting a sentence, required also by UEFA at that time for the compilation of UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europe League tables, forced the sport system to act quickly to avoid further problems.
As football is a very sensitive social and economic issue in Italy, the effects of this scandal went far beyond the narrow scope of the football system. Often, situation related to football become issues of public order, as In 2006, more than 1000 Fiorentina fans blocked one of Italy's main railway lines, between Rome and Milan. Juventus support threatened to stand outside FIGC offices to protest against the decision of allowing Inter Milan to keep the title of 2006. During the past years, also some political parties have tried to propose a general amnesty for people involved in these scandals.
Supporters’ violence in Italy is more related to issues concerning the peculiar “Ultras” anti-systemic culture, aimed at carrying out violence against cops and against other football supporters belonging to teams considered enemies. Moreover, but this is a more general European phenomena, among Ultras supporters there are extreme right and left wings groups and the border between football support and political activism is very weak.
Calciopoli represented a breaking point in Italian football history. However, its effects are yet to be deployed completely. Trial in Naples is far from being concluded and further developments, and why not surprises, could be expected.
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Friday, 29 July 2011
Dario Cristiani
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