You have to love the Italians, don’t you? If they didn’t exist someone would have to invent them, and just think what sort of tortured imagination it would take to dream up such improbably complex concepts as the Papacy, the Borgias, the Mafia, Niccolo Machiavelli, Silvio Berlusconi, Leonardo da Vinci and the great Juventus referee-fixing scandal.
No fiction writer would dare come up with a plot so corny that a team could start the week as world champions and end it in disgrace.
Yet we all knew it was coming and the Italians have even been here before. In 1982, the previous time Italy won the World Cup, they began the tournament in disgrace yet managed to lift the trophy through the scoring exploits of Paolo Rossi, a striker only just back from a two-year suspension after being caught up in a betting scandal back home.
Also, the first time Italy won the World Cup, playing at home under Mussolini’s none-too-benevolent gaze in 1934, a level of suspicion surrounded the tournament. No one was suggesting the outcome was rigged, exactly, but Italy’s determination to win took other nations by surprise.
Marco Materazzi would have no difficulty understanding that, 72 years later. While gentler, less robust sporting cultures have suggested that Italy’s 2006 win will be forever tainted by whatever insult the defender is supposed to have used to wind up Zinedine Zidane so effectively, there is no chance of Italians letting mere words get in the way of a famous victory.
Materazzi was not cheating, after all. He was merely playing to win. The concept of furbo, or cunning, is an admired one in Italian football. You get away with what you can, which is evidently what Juventus have been doing for several seasons.
It says a lot about Italy’s sporting culture — and perhaps not only its sporting culture — that Juventus have long been suspected of wielding undue influence without anyone speaking out or trying to do anything about it.
Supporters just seemed to accept that Juventus were hard to beat when it mattered, as part of the natural order. Even when it was clear their success was not purely down to luck or footballing talent. Most things are corruptible in Italy and the man in the street would not have been shocked to hear that the country’s biggest clubs were attempting to fix matches.
The most recent Italian scandal would never have come to light but for officials’ phones being bugged for another purpose. Police were looking to confirm suspicions of doping, but they found incontrovertible evidence of a much simpler method of enhancing results.
Hard evidence made all the difference, as Antonio di Pietro, a magistrate who led a campaign against political corruption in Italy, said when the Juve board resigned en masse two months ago.
”No one is really surprised,” Di Pietro said. ”It was the same with my case. Everyone knew corruption was a very common practice among Italian politicians, but you cannot do anything until you see someone with his hands in the marmalade.”
The sticky stuff is now all over Italian football and adhering, among others, to Berlusconi, whose Milan team have been docked 15 points and kicked out of the Champions League. Only a few weeks ago, Berlusconi was shamelessly demanding Milan be crowned champions if Juventus were stripped of the title.
On the day the demotions were announced, Berlusconi was setting new standards for hypocritical doublespeak. Machiavelli would have been proud of him, not to mention Tony Blair.
”The punishments should not hit players or fans who have no responsibility whatsoever,” the former Italian prime minister argued. ”Should Juve be relegated, it would hinder other clubs that would lose the revenue they take when they play against such a team. One also has to think of the damage to sponsors and television companies.
”The judges have not listened to all the telephone conversations and in all of this story there has never been a smell of money. That is why you cannot really speak of corruption.”
You have to admire that ”no smell of money” line. There is a strong smell of something hanging over Italy at the moment, but it’s not money, so that’s all right. — Â