| Condensed story, some top league Italian teams have very close contact with the officiating referees in Serie A. Juventus are the most prestigous of these and there have been rumours and allegeations that they have used these contacts to change the way certain games are officiated. This is'nt as simple as paying the ref off, more a we want things done this way in this game to "favour" rather than gift a team a win. On the same score but to a lesser effect Lazio, Ac Milan and Fiorentina are also implicated. The whole affair has gone to a high level court in Italy that has recommended that Juventus be relegated two divisions, Lazio and Fiorentina to be relegated one division and start the next season on -15 points (equiv. to 5 wins in a 38 game season) and AC Milan be relegated one division and start -3 points (1 win). The football authorities in Italy are yet to act on the situation. It is key to note that 13 of the 23 players in the Italian national side that has made it to the world cup final play for these teams so as you can imagine this could cause a surge in transfers in the european game. Also to add a mafioso twist to the story Juve's General Manager took a suicide leap from 5 floors up during the trial holding a wreath of flowers, he is currently critical in hospital. So as you can see, pretty fucked up. |