Euroscene: "What the f*** is happening? What are they doing, that lot, they've just gone and scored a goal. They're mad, they've scored a goal by mistake . . ."
The speaker in the above bugged telephone conversation is an unidentified official from Italian second division side Venezia and the man on the other end of the line was Franco Dal Cin, Venezia's managing director. The conversation took place during the first half of Genoa's 3-2 win over Venezia on the last day of the Serie B season on June 11th. Genoa's win had earned them a short-lived promotion to Serie A.
As many readers will know, the "Genoa affair" concluded with Genoa being found guilty of match-fixing and consequently demoted from Serie A to Serie C1 at a League disciplinary commission hearing on July 27th. Genoa president Enrico Preziosi, Genoa general manager Stefano Capozucca, and Venezia's Dal Cin were all given five-year bans while Venezia players, goalkeeper Martin Lejsal and striker Massimo Borgobello, were given bans of five and six months, respectively.
The football federation clearly believed that the two clubs had come to an "agreement" given that this was a match which meant nothing to already relegated Venezia but meant everything to Genoa's promotion hopes.
The federation, too, clearly had serious suspicions about a briefcase containing €250,000 which was found by police in the car of Venezia official Giuseppe Pagliaria, just as he pulled out of the office of Genoa president Preziosi near Milan on the Tuesday after the Genoa-Venezia game. Pagliara claimed the money was part-payment of a transfer fee for Venezia defender Ruben Maldonaldo.
The match itself provided reason for suspicion. Was the half-time substitution of Venezia goalkeeper Lejsal, replaced by inexperienced 20-year-old Riccardo Pezzato, really prompted by an injury? Until then Lejsal had been man of the match, largely responsible for keeping Venezia in front until the final seconds of the first half when Genoa equalised through their Argentinian striker Diego Milito.
The Genoa case came to light thanks to the work of two Genoa-based public prosecutors, Alberto Lari and Giovanni Arena, who had been alerted to possible "irregularities" in the Genoa-Venezia game. The prosecutors put taps on the mobile phones of various Venezia and Genoa officials while bugs were also installed in the rooms of the Novotel Hotel, Genoa, where the Venezia team stayed.
The Genoa story came to mind this week when reading that Fifa president Sepp Blatter, speaking at the 55th Fifa Congress in Marrakesh last weekend, said that Fifa intended to establish a task force to deal with "problematic" issues facing football. Among those "problems" are match-fixing (more often linked to gambling than to promotion-relegation issues), corruption, bribery and multi-club ownership.
Even a cursory glance around the world would suggest the task force will have plenty on its hands. As we write, two referees, Vietnam's Luong Trung Viet and German Robert Hoyzer, are facing court cases in which they will be charged with having taken bribes to influence the outcome of matches. Trung Viet, currently in prison, is alleged to have taken a $1,260 bribe from Ho Chi Minh city-based East Asia Provina Steel club to swing a game in their favour.
Hoyzer is awaiting trial on charges, based on his own admission that he swung games for money, including the first-round German Cup elimination of first division side Hamburg SV last year. Prosecutors suspect that at least 25 people, including four referees and 14 players, were involved in fixing lower division games.
In Portugal, 171 people may be charged over alleged match-fixing and in Singapore the football association is investigating two cases of match-fixing, one involving a friendly in July between Singapore and Malaysia.
