18/05/2006

The Italian champions wrapped up their Serie A campaign with a 2-0 win over Reggina but, following crowd trouble in their opponents' previous game, the match was switched 150 miles up the Italian coast. Given that Bari play their football in Serie B, more than 30,000 of the club's supporters jumped at the chance of witnessing Juventus at first hand.

They need not have been so hasty. With the biggest crisis in Italian football about to engulf the country's most popular and successful club, they could be seeing a lot more of the Turin giants next season.

A scandal that has already claimed the scalp of Juve general manager Luciano Moggi could well end in his club's demotion to Italy's second division.

But the fall-out is unlikely to stop there. The fear among Italy's movers and shakers is that the revelations could yet cast a far wider net. If things continue at the current pace, it will not take long for Italian football to come crashing to its knees.

As with most things in the politically-charged environment of Italian sport, the current crisis combines its fair share of mystery and intrigue. Claim has matched counter-claim in recent weeks, but the basic facts are clear.

After more than two years of investigation, Italian prosecutors have unearthed thousands of pages of phone-tapping recordings that place Moggi at the heart of a far-reaching network that has systematically manipulated the Italian game.

Nine referees have been named as Moggi's foot soldiers - one, Massimo De Sanctis, has subsequently been banned from officiating in the World Cup - and all have been accused of favouring Juventus in crucial games over the last two seasons.

Others, who were not in the paymaster's pocket, have come forward to reveal the methods used to intimidate those who refused to be bought.

Gianluca Paparesta, one of Italy's most senior officials, was locked in a dressing room along with his linesman after a Juventus defeat last season.

"If I reported the incident," he claimed, "they'd have run me out of the game." Ironically, that is exactly what is now happening to Moggi and the rest of his clique.

The man at the centre of the scandal resigned on Monday morning facing charges ranging from criminal conspiracy to intimidation and kidnapping.

Later in the day, the entire Juventus board also stood down in an attempt to distance the club from the conspiracy.

It is unlikely to work. Juventus, owned by the powerful Agnelli family, who also control car manufacturers Fiat, are almost certain to be relegated to Serie B despite celebrating their 29th Serie A title on Sunday.

On Tuesday, the Milan stock exchange suspended trading in the club's shares for the second day in succession after more than £40m, or 20 per cent of Juve's total value, was wiped off its market price in the space of a week.

Crucially, there is a precedent at work here. In 1980, AC Milan and Lazio were relegated to Serie B after an investigation into match-fixing and, four years ago, Fiorentina were demoted to Serie C2 after a series of financial irregularities led to judicially-controlled administration.

With that in mind, it is difficult to see how Juventus can wriggle out of the current mess. But the scandal does not stop there.

Forty-one people in total are being investigated for alleged match-fixing and referee-manipulation and they include senior officials at both Fiorentina and Lazio. Neither of those clubs is safe from the threat of the drop.

Similarly, the national power-brokers of the Italian game are shifting uneasily in their seats. If Juventus are merely pawns in a far bigger game - as Moggi is intimating he will claim when he is interrogated by police in Naples - the entire infrastructure of Italian football could be about to come crashing to the ground.

Already, Italian Football Federation (FIGC) president Franco Carraro and vice-president Innocenzo Mazzini have fallen on their swords and, with magistrates in Naples having widened their investigations to take in allegations of related illegal betting, the current claims could prove to be the tip of a very large iceberg.

If that proves to be the case, the reputation of Italian football will be well and truly sunk.

The reputation of English cricket will follow it unless last weekend's comical capers against Sri Lanka are not repeated this summer.

Catches went down quicker than a 20-stone parachutist as Andrew Flintoff's side failed to kill off their opponents despite enforcing the follow-on with Sri Lanka still trailing by 359 runs.

When even the normally-dependable Paul Collingwood is spilling straight-forward opportunities, something is clearly amiss. It could be a case of early-season rustiness and, if so, normal service should be resumed when England begin the second Test at Edgbaston next Thursday.

But, more worryingly, it could also be a case of 'After the Lord Mayor's Show' following the hysteria that accompanied last summer's Ashes series.

If England are struggling to motivate themselves for this summer's schedule, they risk losing all of the momentum they gathered 12 months ago.

With cricket removed from terrestrial television, it will not take much for the sport to be forgotten amidst the hurly-burly of football's World Cup.

Published: 18/05/2006