Paddy Agnew/Euroscene: At about three o'clock on Sunday morning, the men from Nafta Moskva cried "enough". The lawyer representing the Russian petrol import/export conglomerate left a polite note on the table, informing AS Roma football club his clients were no longer interested in their club.
Thus ended a month-long negotiation that had seemed sure to see Roma follow down the now familiar path trod by Premiership side Chelsea last summer, when it was bought by Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich.
Even if they had their misgivings, Roma fans were already preparing to welcome the Russian "sugar daddies" who were reportedly willing to splash out €400 million to buy the club and wipe out its €239.2 million worth of debt.
The collapse of the Roma sale rounded off an especially unsuccessful week for Italian football, a week when it earned itself a massive vote of no confidence on the playing fields and in the tax inspector's office, as well as in the Nafta Moskva boardroom.
On the pitch, six Italian sides played in Champions League and UEFA Cups games without one of them winning. Reigning Italian champions Juventus were played off the park by Deportivo La Coruna in a 1-0 Champions League away defeat, while the reigning European champions AC Milan ground out a dull, 0-0 draw away to Sparta Prague.
In the UEFA Cup, Parma and Roma lost 1-0 (to Turkish sides Genclerbirligi and Gaziantepspor respectively), whilst Inter Milan drew 2-2 away to French side Sochaux and little Perugia held Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven to a 0-0 draw.
Uninspiring as these results undoubtedly are, history suggests that the Italian big guns can set things to rights in the return legs. Certainly, league leaders Milan, "Old Lady" Juventus and Roma will fancy their chances of overcoming first-leg setbacks.
It remains to be seen, however, if Italian football can recover quite so quickly from the damage inflicted off the field last Thursday when more than 1,000 finance police officers were involved in 53 raids on the administrative offices of all Serie A, Serie B and some Serie C sides, as well as on those of the Italian Football Federation and Football League.
At least three factors prompted this latter, unprecedented action. Firstly, there was the dossier presented to the finance police (the Revenue) by Giuseppe Gazzoni Frascara, owner of Serie A side Bologna. Put simply, he argued that Italian football is not being played on a level playing field for the good reason that some clubs pay all their taxes, pay their players punctually and file correctly audited balance sheets, while others do not. Those who "fiddle the books", claim the Bologna boss, have an unfair advantage on their league rivals since their tax evasion, irregular player wage payment and fraudulent bookkeeping leaves them with greater resources to spend on buying the best players.
Even before Gazzoni Frascara presented his document, however, the police had already been alerted by two other events.
Firstly, investigations into the recent collapse of dairy giant Paramalat, owners of Parma football club, had thrown light on some highly irregular player "trades" between Parma and Lazio (at the time controlled by another subsequently collapsed foods company, Cirio).
Also, the Rome public prosecutor's office is investigating suspected fraud regarding financial guarantees presented last summer by four clubs, Roma, Napoli, Cosenza and Spal, prior to their enrolment in this season's first, second and third division championships.
It remains to be seen just what the finance police will discover from the van-loads of documents they took away from the clubs.
What we know for now is that Italian football is in a serious crisis. For instance, the collective debt of the 18 clubs currently in Serie A is estimated at €1.941 billion.
Of those 18 clubs, only four - Juventus, Empoli, Chievo and Reggina - returned a profit for the financial year ending June 2003, while Lazio lost €121.9 million, Roma €104.8 million, Parma €77 million and Milan €29.5 million.
On top of that, by last June Lazio owed the Revenue €118.8 million, Roma €68.3 million, while Inter, Juventus and Milan all owed about €21 million.
Worse still, underpinning these heavily indebted balance sheets are some "creative accountancy" practices whereby unknown players are valued for millions, where transfer fees become inflated in subsequent balance sheets and where transfer sales are written in to the books immediately but transfer purchases are not written in until next season.
As we said, the damage done on the playing fields last week can be easily and immediately repaired. As the collapse of the sale of Roma to Nafta Moskva would suggest, however, the potential long-term damage done by Italian football's economic shortcomings may not be so easily or promptly remedied.
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