Crisis at Juve
The crisis surrounding Juve is the biggest story in football right now. For those of you Anglophiles who haven't been keeping up, Juve has been accused of having fixed games in the 2004/5 season. Several weeks ago, the entire board of the club resigned. Just last weekend, police searched the homes of one of the board members as well as of striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic and veteran captain Fabio Cannavaro. Click on the following link for more on this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/4993482.stm
Three other clubs are implicated in this scandal: Lazio, Fiorentina and Milan. The only one of those that I have any fondness for is Fiorentina. This is the thing that stinks about Italian footie and one of the main reasons that I don't follow it. Not to long ago, I read a terrific book by an American writer Joe McGinnis called "The Miracle of Castel di Sangro," which was a season in the life of a Serie B team. McGinnis was shocked in the book to find that match-fixing was rife in Italy, but I wasn't it.
There are major implications for this scandal, including:
1) Juventus being stripped of its Scudetto title, won just last weekend. It may end up at Inter.
2) Juventus - and perhaps others - being relegated, and maybe all the way down to Serie C!
3) Juve players and players from other sides going onto the market.
4) The Italian squad for the WC being in tatters, perhaps to the advantage of Bruce Arena's U.S. team?
Your thoughts, gentlemen?
~Bob
posted by Anonymous @ 9:33 AM
1 Comments:
I'm pretty sure that a FIFA spokesperson said that whatever the findings are will have no effect on Italian participation in the WC.
That said, if this moves quickly, Buffon and Cannavaro are likely to see bans which WOULD take immediate effect and that WOULD include their participation in the WC. But don't expect quick action.
I think point one is that yes, Juve stand a good chance of having this year's Scudetto striped off them. Which may have some effect on whether they participate in the CL next year.
Point 2, relegation is a very tricky thing. Personally, I can't imagine the fall-out from the loss of Juve, Lazio, Fiorentina and Milan to Serie B or C. Those are big clubs that have political ties than span the length and bredth of Italy.
Point 3, if these clubs get banned from CL and UEFA Cup participation next year, let alone relegation to serie B or C, of course there's going to be a massive clear out. No-way are the top Italian players going to slog it out against the likes of Rimini and Castel di Sangro. Unthinkable. What's more, many player contracts have get-out clauses bilaterally effective on relagation so that while the player can't get Shanghaied away to Serie B, neither can a player who got the club relegated necessarily keep making the same money.
And point 4, of course this is good news for the US. The Italian's always create a pseudo-crisis--Totti's wife not getting along with the other wives in the squad, rumors of Del Piero's sexual preferences, etc.
This scandal is the real deal and these mentally fragile guys will be completely banjaxed by this. It's a flippin' gift to the Czechs and Ghanaians too.
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