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I refer to the article published on page 24 of MaltaToday of Sunday 9 July 2006 entitled ‘Amnesty or Justice’, particularly to the contribution by my friend Mark Attard.
Indeed, until some years ago, Italian football was considered to be one of the most – if not the most – spectacular in the world. It was quite evident that something was fundamentally wrong in the Italian league, as many strange things happened and all of us who were not blinded by extreme ‘tifoseria’ were suspicious that there was a powerful hand leading the show behind the various strange episodes which occurred on a regular basis. Those who thought that everything was hunky dory were either busy winning scudetti or refused to admit that Italian football was nothing but a farce. I am one of those who have Italian football at heart and Mark is right when he says that these are very dark moments, particularly for those supporters who have discovered that they have been taken for a ride for all these years.
Mark gave us an unbiased opinion of who are the best players but apparently forgot to mention the two top scorers of the Italian national team who by great coincidence do not belong neither to Juve, nor Milan.
Thank God that the Italian national players have more sense than Mark, otherwise we would have missed all the celebrations which took place until the early hours of Monday 10 July. I would not be surprised to learn that Mark formed part of the huge crowd gathered in St Julian’s after Fabio Grosso (also forgotten by Mark) scored the fifth decisive penalty and sent Italian supporters to seventh heaven.
According to Mark, Juventus seems to be in the worst position because the ‘most powerful person in the world of football is employed by this society’. I beg your pardon, but whose decision was it to employ him and Mr Giraudo? Which Juve shareholder, official or supporter did not celebrate the various scudetti won during the Moggi tenure? Is there a Juventino on this planet who until 2 months ago tried to disassociate Moggi from Juve? Of course not. So don’t come crying and begging for mercy, arguing that Moggi acted alone and has nothing to do with Juve. Mark decided to become both judge and jury as he tries to defend the indefensible Moggi during an intercepted telephone conversation. Needless to say that this pathetic and feeble attempt does not take into consideration the unethical, unscrupulous, patronising and dishonest manner in which the then Juventus Director General used to speak to his contacts in the Referees’ Federation (AIA) and in the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), in order to ensure that ‘his’ Juventus is given preferential treatment in exchange of luxury items – including cars.
Some (like Mark) argue that this is all fiction for the simple reason that Juventus have such a great team (eight of them played in the World cup final) and consequently did not need this kind of ‘help’. I fully agree that Juventus had a great team, one of the best in the Serie A – if not the best. However, football is sometimes a strange game and not always the best team wins. A simple explanation comes along by asking how come Juve always fail in the Champions League? Aren’t these the same players?
Mark wanted to save the best for last, by blaming FC Internazionale of being behind all this and by hoping that a World Cup victory would mean amnesty for this favourite team. I fail to understand why he is blaming a team which during all the saga was never mentioned. Even thought a lot of chocolate hit the fan, Inter are still as clean as a whistle, they always were, thanks to the greatest gentleman in world football, Massimo Moratti. I can understand that when someone is drowning, he’ll grab at anything in order not go down.
With regards to the amnesty, I beg your pardon once again, but let me remind Mark that in the third paragraph of his article he insists that ‘The law is the same for everyone and this principle should be applied across the board, all those who are proven guilty should get the punishment they deserve’. I cannot agree more with him on this one, and the judgements delivered by the judges entrusted with this Calciopoli clean-up confirm this.
A Juventino who is a real football lover should accept the deserved punishment in the same manner as a sick patient accepts to have his medicine, even thought it tastes so bad. This is the only way in which Juventus and Italian Football as a whole can heal from the ‘Moggitis’ disease. Even though football like other sports nowadays is an industry in its won right, it should still be considered as something which brings people together and most of all educates our children. Football goes beyond winning cups (not that these are not important) and it is based on fair play. Fair play does not only mean throwing the ball out of play when your opponent is lying down injured but competing on a level playing field without using illicit ways to gain advantage on your opponents.
Antoine Portelli
Swieqi
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