CHAPTER 87: The Dark Side of Football......

“The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference.”
– Bess Myerson

Everything in this world has a good, positive point and it also has a bad, negative point. It’s the same exception with football. Several days ago, we come to the realization of the ending of the event that was the FIFA World Cup. Now, we come to the realization of another matter that is also related to football, but one that is set in the tone of bad, negative point.

It’s what the Italians calling it ‘Calciopoli’.
The Italian football scandal that’s been rocking it’s nation as well as other followers of European football.
The verdict has come out already. The 4 Italians football clubs involved in the match-fixing scandal are all punished by the Italian authorities that have taken charge of this matter.
As it stands out, Lazio, Fiorentina and Juventus are all relegated and will start next season with the penalty of deducted points (most hard hit’s Juventus, a frikkin’ minus 30 points) and AC Milan will be starting the league with minus 15 points, adding to the fact that they will not compete in Europe either.

So, why would I write something about this?
I’m not a follower of Serie A nor am I a supporter of any Italian clubs or the Azzuri squad, but what has happened in Italy, for me is a serious projection of negativity towards football as a sport.
As I stated earlier, everything in this world got good and bad factors. But in this case, the bad factor that rocked Italian football is something grave, which has inspired further more to the fact that the big clubs in Europe are way too dominating their competition and are willing to win at no matter what’s the consequences.
It’s when greed ‘s taking over your soul. Here, the guilty culprit of all this Italian job mess is Luciano Moggi, the now ex-Juventus director. It was his dealing with bribing referees that were caught by the Italian authorities that catapulted all of this mess. Soon enough, the other three, Lazio, AC Milan and Fiorentina are later brought towards the hearing of the prosecution of each club that’s all tangled up in this putrid business in football.

Lawless Luciano; the epicentre of all the mess

The fact that I wanna bring up is, this Italian football scandal, it brings many bad consequences to different parts & different people associated with those clubs punished.
For the clubs, loss of profits the main implication (as they’re punished, there’s no European football to rake in the cash from that perspective, as well as losing face and contracts with numerous sponsors), and TV revenue going down as well (especially for Lazio, Fiorentina and Juve as they’re going to play in Serie B). Regarding this, I believe that when it was first mentioned that Juventus were caught up in the scandal, Juventus lost stakes astronomically.
Then there’s the seemingly probable exodus of the top class players who are playing in these 4 clubs, just like what’s being mentioned and stipulated across any news and media anywhere throughout nearly these last 2 months or so.

Destination: ..unknown......

But on all of these consequences, there’s one point I really want to stress out, the ones who’d really be devastated with all of this. The clubs who are punished, if their management are smart and diligent, can help their clubs rise up back again (of course, it takes time and patience).
It’s inevitable that the players will surely leave. But when they leave, there’s definitely a big host of other clubs just eagerly waiting to snap up the opportunity of signing them. So in this sense, these players are not in a big mess at all (they’ll still end up getting millionaires’ paychecks when they move to a newer challenge…)
But the ones who would feel most hard done by are the fans and supporters of those clubs. And I mean the ‘real’ fans (not some muthafu-kin’ glory hunters).
It’s damn tough seeing your favored club punished, and seeing the insurmountable prospect that some of your best players would be leaving. And of course, the bloody banter that could occur from rival fans, which can be damn pain (the unfortunate side of sporting rivalry, the one where sportsmanship doesn’t exist in some minds). And it makes you wonder too what would you feel if this same sort of sh-t happened with your club?

It’s sh-t, seeing the team you support go down in such a way, and there’s nothing much you can do about it, and it’s all ‘cause of some few men.

It’s crap.
You already got the negatives concerning football that two of them being hooliganism and racism (always occurring in football).
But you also got this kind of problem as well. What’s being shown here as well is that the gap of power between the smaller fries and the 'bigger fishes' are being widen apart further, and the danger of football itself (the image of the sport further tarnished) being a pawn in a chess of deceit and power, instead of what is should really be: the ‘Beautiful Game’.

The Calciopoli Revolution