Okay. How do you
teach Italian football giants a lesson? Seemingly, you offer up a just
punishment, and then go all soft and resort to a wrist slap. The extraordinary
tale that has slackjawed football fans all over the world has included wire tapped
phones, illicit meetings and locking refs in dressing rooms.
Lazio
and Fiorentina have been reinstated to Serie A with point deductions increased
from 12 to 19 for Fiorentina and 7 to 11 for Lazio.Juve’s of overturning their
relegation to Serie B were quashed, but instead of starting on minus 30 points,
they have only had 17 points taken away. Milan stay in Serie A, with their
penalty cut from 15 points to 8. They’re also allowed to play in the Champions League.
What?
It is quite apparent that Berlusconi has pulled some strings, and showing Italian football for being the huge crook that it is. With the reinstating of Fiorentina and Lazio, little regard has been left for the now twice relegated Lecce and Treviso. The smaller clubs have been left ruing the power and weight carried by the bigger clubs. If the scandal of Italian football was their cheating, now the scandal is the complete disregard for the small clubs.
I’ve always feared that Europe’s top leagues have suffered from a two-tiered rulebook, and this would certainly indicate the latest example of this. Fans of Messina, kept in Serie A, must fear any appeal from Juventus. The way the case has gone so far, it would seem that Juve will somehow retain their top flight status, meaning that Messina, a club that has done nothing wrong, will be penalised twice over, because of greedy bigger clubs.
Football, in Italy at least, is not played on a level playing field; that is a scandal in itself.
Mof Gimmers