A tragedy had occurred, but what? Questions to the deputy prime minister were tabled in parliament. The Bishops' Conference felt obliged to issue a condemnatory comment. Every serious news organisation in the land led its front page or its main news bulletin with the story. In every bar and restaurant, it dominated all conversation.
A stranger would have had difficulty understanding it all, but this was the week when the unashamed Italian passion for the game of soccer or calcio touched a new high. The "tragedy" in question, the burning news topic of the week, the issue that led to scuffles in parliament, was nothing more or less than the controversial refereeing of last Sunday's vital, top-of-the-table clash between Italian soccer clubs Juventus and Inter Milan.
For the benefit of the uninitiated, it is worth pointing out that the referee, a certain Piero Ceccarini, prompted the wrath of more than half the Italian nation by refusing to grant a penalty to Inter Milan's brilliant Brazilian Ronaldo. Ceccarini then poured highoctane petrol on the burning fires he had just kindled by awarding a penalty to Juventus within 25 seconds of having denied Inter and Ronaldo.
All of this occurred midway through the second half of Sunday's game at a time when the score was 1-0 in favour of Juventus. Obviously, had the referee awarded the penalty and had it been converted, then the game might have had a radically different outcome.
Controversial decisions abound in competitive sport but this one provoked exceptional anger not only because it came in what was a virtual championship decider between the two leading teams in the land, but also because it was not the first time this season Juventus had appeared to benefit from debatable decisions. The two sides had gone into the game with Juventus just one point ahead of Inter but the 10 Juventus win means that, with three games to play, Juventus have virtually wrapped up the Italian league championship.
Now, again for the uninitiated, it is worth pointing out that the Juventus club from Turin is owned by the Agnelli family, the major shareholders in automobile giant Fiat. In a country where conspiracy theories abound like mushrooms on a wet September morning, it took approximately 30 million people just 25 seconds last Sunday to conclude that referee Ceccarini had been unnecessarily deferential to a club and to an industrial powerhouse, both of them national icons.
Right wing deputy, Ignazio La Russa, of ex-Fascist Alleanza Nazionale, was among the first to give authoritative voice to the suspicions. La Russa, incidentally a declared Inter fan, tabled a question for deputy prime minister Walter Veltroni (curiously, a Juventus supporter) early on Monday calling for Juventus to be stripped of their forthcoming title and calling also for government action in relation to "illegality" in soccer.
When Deputy Veltroni answered the question two days later, tempers had not cooled since during question time another Alleanza Nazionale deputy, Domenico Gramazio, began shouting "Thieves!" at the left-wing benches and in particular at a left-wing deputy, Massimo Mauro, who just happens to be a former Juventus player. When the latter called Gramazio a "clown", the House ushers had to be called in to prevent an outbreak of fisticuffs.
Sir, the news agency run by the Italian Bishops Conference, carried a comment piece by Don Roberto Guglielmoni, a priest described by the agency as an "attentive observer of social phenomena linked to the world of soccer". He wrote: "The Church has no intention of entering into the merits of the argument . . . but it must help people to create a hierarchy of values so as not to fall into idolatry, the Church must reinforce its love for truth in each and every field . . ."
The non-Italian might feel soccer is hardly a matter for parliamentary questions (or scuffles) and he might justifiably wonder why the Bishops' Conference should want to have a say on the subject. Such a view is reasonable but it simply fails to take on board Italy's long-running love story with a soccer world that these days provides a heady cocktail of nationalist sentiment, political intrigue and million-dollar investment.
Such a view also fails to acknowledge the splendid Italian ability to become instantly, animatedly and knowledgably enthusiastic about soccer. Paolo Rossi, a former Juventus and Italy player and the hero of Italy's 1982 World Cup winning squad, once told this correspondent: "People ask me how important is soccer in Italy. I say 90 per cent of Italians are crazy about soccer and the other 10 per cent, those who say they don't care about it, they are just pretending and in fact follow it all the time."
To wonder what all the fuss was about this week in Italy was to fail to understand that this is a country where one man, centre-right opposition leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, could overnight create an entire political party and win a general election partly because of his winning image as the owner of Italy's (then) most successful team, AC Milan. Just to underline the soccer affinities, Berlusconi called his new party, Forza Italia (basically the equivalent of "Up Ireland"), while its members are called Azzurri, a title normally reserved for the members of Italy's World Cup team.
Juventus and Inter Milan are not just standard-bearers of civic pride for Italy's two major industrial cities. In the very week in which Roman side Lazio became the first Italian club to be floated on the stock exchange, it is worth remembering that clubs like Juventus and Inter have moved on from being expensive family "toys" for the idle rich and are now complex business concerns whose balance sheets include earnings from TV rights, merchandising, sponsorships and gate receipts.
Massimo Moratti, the petrol millionaire owner of Inter Milan, began the week of the ill-fated Juventus v Inter game in Teheran, where he had gone to talk oil business and oil money with Iranian Energy Ministry officials. In Iran, however, he found his hosts were equally curious about another, rather different, investment - the estimated $110 million dollars his club will splash out over the next eight years for the privilege of having the boy Ronaldo wear their famous blue and black shirt.
This week's polemics, however, are about more than financial considerations. The nationwide sense that sporting justice was not done finds its roots in a healthy paranoia which sees Italians instinctively believe those in power or in "higher places" systematically "fix" everything to suit themselves.
Even when dealing with something as seemingly innocent as sport, Italians are quick to grab at the conspiracy theory, even if no one has yet produced a single shred of evidence of foul play (i.e. bribes paid to the referee etc) in any match. The anti-Juventus paranoia argues that Fiat's power intimidates (and always has intimidated) referees. Historical recrimination in relation to titles won by Juventus goes back at least to the 1950s. In truth, too, the anti-Juventus faction does not always acknowledge the club's undoubted sporting merits nor the fact that it is probably the best side in Italy at the moment.
The name Juventus, too, was once a red rag to wave at the entire Italian left since it was associated with a company which, particularly in the 1970s, found itself in the thick of controversial and bitter struggles with the trade union movement. The current Juventus coach, Marcello Lippi, has recalled how on the day he was about to take up his new appointment with the Turin club he went to visit his father's grave. His father had been a militant trade-unionist and, according to his son, hated Juventus and "all it stood for". Given Marcello Lippi's huge success at Juventus (in four seasons, he has won two Italian titles and a European Champions Cup), it would seem the father has forgiven the son's transgression.
AT the end of the day, though, all this week's hullabaloo says more about the Italian passion for soccer and conspiracy theories than about anything that happened at the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin last Sunday. In this case, the alleged conspiracy involves only soccer and as Italians would say, "non e morto nessuno" (no one is dead). Furthermore, if - as is always possible - Italy were to have a good World Cup in France this summer with a squad which includes Juventus and Inter players, then all would be forgiven. This week's storm would be long past.