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Players or Gamblers?
Thursday, 07 December 06, 05:31 PM · Comments (0)
Just two weeks ago, Serie A footballers Francesco Flachi (Sampdoria) and Moris Carrozzieri (Atalanta) played their first official match after a two months ban for illegal betting. Now, another scandal is throwing a shadow on Italian football, whose credibility has been weakened last summer by the biggest match-fixing scandal in its history.
Public prosecutors in Udine (North-East) are investigating 21 players and former players for illegal betting, some of them quite famous such as World Champion Vincenzo Iaquinta (Udinese), Australian goalie Zeljko Kalac and Czech defender Marek Jankulovski (Milan), and Palermo striker David Di Michele. The earthquake epicentre seems to be a special newsstand in Udine, where its owner –Armando Zamparo- keeps a personal computer and a fax: some of top bets came from there and passed through British agency Eurobet UK (but the agency managers say those bets were fake).
As some players bet on their own team’s matches (on February 2005 Di Michele bet on Udinese-Inter as he used to play with the “bianconeri”) , we might also have another case of match fixing. And everybody wants to know who’s behind the nickname “Valle Maria” that won 40.000 Euros betting 100.000 on Reggina-Bologna (1-1, 8th May 2005).
So, while we’re waiting for the results of Public prosecutors’ investigation, probe has been handed over to FIGC (Italian Football Association) prosecutors. Some of these players run the risk of being banned for one year, though most of illegal bets took place before November 2005, when FIGC introduced more severe penalties with a minimum ban of 18 months.
This is not the first time that happens: in 1980 a match fixing caused relegation to AC Milan, and elder people remember policemen handcuffing some players outside the stadiums after Serie A matches. Then, some other small scandals happened, until last summer’s match fixing known as “Calciopoli”.
Though footballers bet “from time immemorial”, we don’t want football to become something similar to wrestling, where nothing is true. And we don’t want it like if it was a big Palio, the ancient horse racing that happens twice a year in Siena (Tuscany), where corruption is legal. It’s more and more difficult to believe that football is a game, we understand it’s a big business, and that’s why we hope there will be heavy punishment to all those people that –if proven guilty- makes football a “dirty business”.
Public prosecutors in Udine (North-East) are investigating 21 players and former players for illegal betting, some of them quite famous such as World Champion Vincenzo Iaquinta (Udinese), Australian goalie Zeljko Kalac and Czech defender Marek Jankulovski (Milan), and Palermo striker David Di Michele. The earthquake epicentre seems to be a special newsstand in Udine, where its owner –Armando Zamparo- keeps a personal computer and a fax: some of top bets came from there and passed through British agency Eurobet UK (but the agency managers say those bets were fake).
As some players bet on their own team’s matches (on February 2005 Di Michele bet on Udinese-Inter as he used to play with the “bianconeri”) , we might also have another case of match fixing. And everybody wants to know who’s behind the nickname “Valle Maria” that won 40.000 Euros betting 100.000 on Reggina-Bologna (1-1, 8th May 2005).
So, while we’re waiting for the results of Public prosecutors’ investigation, probe has been handed over to FIGC (Italian Football Association) prosecutors. Some of these players run the risk of being banned for one year, though most of illegal bets took place before November 2005, when FIGC introduced more severe penalties with a minimum ban of 18 months.
This is not the first time that happens: in 1980 a match fixing caused relegation to AC Milan, and elder people remember policemen handcuffing some players outside the stadiums after Serie A matches. Then, some other small scandals happened, until last summer’s match fixing known as “Calciopoli”.
Though footballers bet “from time immemorial”, we don’t want football to become something similar to wrestling, where nothing is true. And we don’t want it like if it was a big Palio, the ancient horse racing that happens twice a year in Siena (Tuscany), where corruption is legal. It’s more and more difficult to believe that football is a game, we understand it’s a big business, and that’s why we hope there will be heavy punishment to all those people that –if proven guilty- makes football a “dirty business”.
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Gabriele
Roma, IT
Un posto diverso da Calciopoli, molto più bello!
