Euroscene: Speaker A: "Are you guys picking the referees this morning?" Speaker B: "Sure, we're doing it right now, but we have everything nicely organised, we're putting it all together now, everything is just fine. Until later".
Speaker A is the Juventus director Luciano Moggi while Speaker B is Pierluigi Pairetto, the man entrusted by the Italian Federation with refereeing appointments for Serie A and other matches. The phone call in question took place on Monday, September 20th, 2004 just two days before Juventus were due to play Sampdoria in a mid-week Serie A league game.
One hour after the above exchange, an employee of the Football Federation rings Moggi to inform the club of the refereeing appointments, a normal courtesy call made to all the clubs after the referees have been nominated. The problem here is that when the lady from the federation tells Moggi that Paolo Dondarini will handle the Sampdoria v Juventus game, she is somewhat taken aback by his answer: "Yeah, yeah, I know all the referees already, we've got Dondarini".
When Juventus went to play Sampdoria two days later, surprise, surprise, the Turin club were awarded a penalty early on in the game, a penalty which set them up for a comfortable 3-0 win. Not surprisingly either, referee Dondarini found himself in the teeth of a storm, being bitterly criticised by the Sampdoria fans. Was this just a question of sour grapes from the Sampdoria fans or were they right to feel that not everything had been conducted fairly and squarely that night?
The "quotes" are but a tiny fraction of the voluminous body of phone tap print-outs which have appeared in the Italian media over the last week, phone taps which indicate the powerful Juventus director Moggi was in constant contact with federation officials, politicians and journalists, discussing everything from refereeing appointments to an ongoing investigation into the affairs of GEA, a players' agency run by his son Alessandro.
Moggi recounts how he advised future Juventus purchase, Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic, to argue with his Ajax Amsterdam team-mates and prompt a bad row in order to persuade the Dutch club they would do better to offload him. He is also heard discussing not just a wide range of refereeing appointments but also advising one TV presenter just how the referees' performances should be evaluated.
For the time being, Luciano and Alessandro Moggi are "under investigation" in two separate inquiries based in Naples and Rome. It remains to be seen if these judicial investigations will lead to charges and a subsequent trial. It also remains to be seen what, if any, sanctions will be applied by the federation's disciplinary commission after it has completed its own investigation, due to start today.
What can be said at this early stage is the phone taps paint a picture of a football world which, at best, could be described as heartless, cynical and not exactly run along Marquess of Queensbury rules.
What can also be said is the phone taps confirm the worst conspiracy theories of an army of Italian fans who believe that Italy's most famous club, Juventus, regularly benefit from favourable refereeing.
As of now, a number of football personalities, including coaches Roberto Mancini of Inter, Carlo Ancelotti of AC Milan and Fiorentina's Cesare Prandelli have all issued statements, implicitly critical of Moggi and his world of alliances, favours, nods and winks. More significantly, Juventus may well be about to distance themselves from a man who has been a key figure in a decade of success (six league titles but no Champions League trophy since 1995).
Jaki Elkann of the Agnelli family, owners of the club since 1924, told reporters on Sunday he and his family were "close to the team and the coach", implying by omission they were less close to the club's management. It could be that by Thursday of this week, Luciano Moggi may no longer work for Juventus.
Ironically, three days after that Juventus will probably clinch the 29th Serie A title of their remarkable history when they travel to little Reggina needing only a draw to see off AC Milan. One suspects that the celebrations - if Juventus do indeed lift the title - will be on the restrained side. What is for sure is the phone taps scandal is only at the beginning.
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