OT - 16 foot high statue of Zidane and Materazzi unveiled in Paris

Yes I am reading what is quoted, but I'm beginning to think that you have still not opened the link...

Almeyda denies he ever took part in any match fixing, but he suspects several of his team-mates did during a match between Parma and Roma in 2001, a result which meant the latter pipped Juventus to the title.

"Some companions in Parma told us that the Roma players wanted us to lose the game," he wrote. "I said 'no' and the majority responded that way, but on the field I saw that some did not run as usual so I asked to be substituted and went in the locker room. Money? I do not know, they called it a favour..."

That appears to be suggesting that he suspected that his team mates threw the game. Not all of them refused to fix it, and he suspects that some that said no didn't try in the match. They may not have received money for doing so, but they called it a favour to Roma.

 

The fact the opportunity to fix the game was offered shows that match fixing was an active issue in the Italian game at that time.

 

That is taking a small part of what he said, if you read his full autobiography in context and the full paragraph and section in context its pretty obvious no money was offered, its stupid, and making a huge deal out of absolutely nothing.

 

Brian Glanvilles take on Italian football
Here, alas, we go again. Corruption, historically endemic in Italian football, is overwhelming it once more. This time, they are calling it Scommessopoli. But what's in a name? In the 1980s, it was known as Totonero: Black Toto. A reference to Totocalcio, the football betting game native to Italy, whose inventor, as we shall see, tipped me off about a vicious stab in the back from a supposed pillar of Italian football journalism, when, in the mid-seventies of last century, I and a multilingual colleague had dared to reveal a shocking story of the corruption of referees by Inter and Juventus.

On a late May Monday (2012), 19 arrests were made in Italy and Hungary in connection with the latest scandal, bringing the number to 50, all accused of fixing matches. It meant that the Italian squad heading then for the European finales in Eastern Europe had to do without their defender, Domenico Criscito, actually with the Azzurri, preparing for the tournament at the Italian training and coaching headquarters, out at Coverciano near Florence. But Cesare Prandelli, the Italy manager, though he cast out Criscito, surprisingly decided he would keep the Juventus centre back, Luciano Bonucci, although his name is rumoured to be on the list of suspects; which Prandelli denies. Scommessopoli, a play on the word scommessa, which means a bet, rolls grimly on.

I was particularly sorry to see that Giuseppe Signori, once such an elegant and effective Italy outside left and modest, friendly man to talk to, was among those arrested. But as one knowledgeable “insider” commented, “Too many dangerous people want to make business from football and can involve the players. It's a real problem for Italian football, but nothing is done to kill it. Every ten years, the problem starts again.”

In 2006, even mighty Juventus were found guilty of participating in fixed matches. They were deprived of two of their League titles and relegated; the club known for its huge popularity as ‘La Signora d'Italia', the bride of Italy. Among those brought down was their powerful chief executive, Luciano Moggi, previously nicknamed “the Nice Pinocchio of Italian football,” Not really so nice but, to his credit, it was he who gave Gianfranco Zola, then an obscure Sardinian footballer, his great chance at Napoli.

Juventus were very much in the direct line of fire when my colleague Keith Botsford, half American and half Italian, began our investigation in 1974 for the Sunday Times, having been tipped off via Budapest, as it happened that Juventus, through the suspicious Hungarian expatriate and fixer, Dezso Solti, had tried in vain to bribe the honest Portuguese referee, Francisco Marques Lobo, to manipulate the return European Cup semifinal, when Juventus visited Derby County. We revealed a shameful cover-up by UEFA who, after a fiasco of an inquiry in Zurich, not only exonerated Juve, but thanked them for their cooperation! And from there, we moved on to Inter and the way they regularly bought, or tried to buy, referees of home.

In Italy, there was outcry “SCANDALOUS ACCUSATIONS AGAINST JUVENTUS” screeched a headline.

The malign spider at the centre of the web was one Italo Allodi, secretary of Inter, then the general manager of Juventus, who used Solti as catspaw. In 1985, Inter and Allodi had bought the Spanish referee who at San Siro gave them two highly suspect goals thereby enabling them to knock out Liverpool on goal difference. It was small consolation for Liverpool that their tough guy Tommy Smith, a Liverpudlian himself, kicked Senor Ortiz de Mendibil all the way back to the dressing rooms. The previous year, it was Borussia Dortmund who at San Siro suffered from corrupt refereeing, when the Yugoslav, Tesanic, allowed Inter's Luis Suarez to stay on the field, after he had kicked the Dortmund right half off it.

I was convinced in 1974 in my innocence that Gianni Brera, recognised as the very conscience of Italian football, would be incensed by our revelations. How naive of me. I was directed to an article by him in the weekly Guerin Sportivo, in which he declared that perhaps I had been informed by “his partner in Jehovah, Dezso Solti”. Solti being targeted as villain of the piece. My reply was ferocious.

Never did Keith and I meet Solti, but, when we were in Budapest, pursuing our quest to root out and expose Italian clubs' Euro corruption, we actually saw him in a fashionable cafe there but decided, in the circumstances, that we couldn't approach him. Though later, we somewhat regretted it.

Allodi was a shameless liar. In an interview given to a Milanese newspaper, he claimed that, when I was ill in Florence, he and others had sent me money enabling me to stay in Italy. Shameless is as shameless does. In fact, I had to leave Florence for treatment in 1954, in London. And Just before Liverpool won the European Cup in Rome, in 1984, when he accosted me in the Hotel Excelsior, saying, “We have never met, but my name is Italo Allodi,” he'd forgotten that I sat next to him before the 1973 European Cup final at the Yugoslavia hotel in Belgrade, when he was at a gambling table. But facts, as you can tell, never mattered much to him.

Totonero, in the 1980s, was appallingly widespread, as the present scandal appears to be. Enrico Albertosi, a World Cup finals ‘keeper was involved. So surprisingly, was that fine centre forward, Paolo Rossi. Suspended for three years, he was amnestied after just two and thus spared to score six goals for Italy as they won the World Cup final of 1982.

One story involved a Bologna-Juventus match which had been fixed. Juve scored, to their horror, and managed to concede the equaliser when their centre half headed into his own goal. Then there was the Bologna centre forward who desperately telephoned an ex-teammate in Milan, begging him to get a bet on for him against his own team, since no bookmaker in Bologna would take it!

Ex-Juventus star, and now their successful manager Antonio Conte, is also involved. An ex-Siena player has accused him, when managing the club, of knowing a match between Siena and Novara had been fixed. When it came to Totonero, one bizarre facet of the affair was that the two small time crooks Trinca and Crociani, one of whom worked in the Rome vegetable market, were able to walk freely into any hotel where teams were staying before a match, while no journalist was allowed entry. The whole plot unravelled when a young Lazio player pretended to be injured, rather than take part in a fixed match in Rome.

 

I really dont see how you can say that. Every single last game of the season in England when teams have nothing to play for players dont try as hard as normal. That is EXACTLY what happened here. Ask Peter Swan about games when there was nothing at stake. Players are human, if there is nothing at stake they dont want to get injured and miss their summer holidays.

 

Michael Laudrups take on it.
Licence to cheat

Michael Laudrup has courted controversy by suggesting that there is nothing wrong with teams paying rival sides to win games.

Can you hear that squeaking noise? It’s the sound of can of worms being opened.

While the Dane insisted he was completely against “match fixing”, he believes the term needs to be “better defined”. Would “cheating” work better?

Laudrup was asked about the issue by a journalist at a news conference.

He replied: “If Swansea play the last game against a team and a third team pays Swansea to win the game, I really don’t see anything bad about that.”

“To say I’m against that [match-fixing] is like saying today it’s Thursday – it’s obvious.

“The worst match fixing I’ve heard was what happened in Italy before I came there in the beginning of the 80s, where somebody bought three or four of the players in a team to lose a game.

“That means that seven or eight players in a team were playing to win, like normal, and three or four of them just to lose.”

However, Laudrup has no problem with what is known in Spanish football as the “suitcases” culture.

“It’s just a bonus. For me, match-fixing is somebody pays someone to lose a game,” he said.

“In Spain where there’s one or two matches left in a season we always talked about the suitcases.

“But the suitcases is to win – I don’t see anything bad about that.

“I think we have to define very well what is match-fixing because there’s different levels, I think.”

I can see that Laudrup is attempting to adopt a nuanced stance over the issue of match fixing, but surely the integrity of sport is a subject that requires absolute clarity. If a club can be persuaded to try harder to win a game, how much easier would it be to persuade a side to lose a game?

 

So much of this is wrong I dont know where to start but I'll pick a fews headlines to be going on with:

In 2006 Juventus were NOT accused of match fixing, nor were Milan, Fiorentina, Reggiana at al. They were found guilty of contacting the Italian referees accociation and requesting certain referees are not assigned their matches. That is the total sum of the accusations and what they were found guilty of. I have seen on TV Sir Alex Ferguson, Mark Hughes and Rafa Benitez (at Liverpool) do precisely this. FACT.

Antionio Conte has NOT been accused of match fixing whilst at Sienna contrary to every single report you have read in the British media. He has been accused and found guilty of failing to report being approached to fix a match. FACT. At the hearing when his sentence was announced the panel went to huge lengths to point out that they have literally ZERO inclination of Conte being involved in match fixing. FACT

 

MATCH FIXING BY PREMIER LEAGUE BOSS. BAN HIM!!!!


A bit more for you.

Prem captains accused in betting scam - Saints legend Lundekvam reveals ‘fraud’

WHISTLEBLOWER ... Claus Lundekvam's revelations have uncovered a football scandal

A SENSATIONAL betting scandal rocked the Premier League last night.
Former Southampton captain Claus Lundekvam has blown the lid on systematic fraud by top-flight players.

The stars made thousands of pounds by spot-fixing — just like the three jailed Pakistan cricketers.

Lundekvam, 39, insists other Premier League skippers colluded with the betting scam. In a series of startling interviews in his native Norway, Lundekvam claimed that he and fellow Saints aces raked in thousands betting on their own games — for a spell, doing it ‘almost every week’.

He alleged they used club staff to put big stakes on incidents like the first throw-in or corner, that they conspired with captains from opposing teams to ensure the bets came off and that the problem was rife in a Premier League where players lived in a ‘bubble’.

Lundekvam, who played for Saints from 1996 to 2008 and won 40 Norway caps, said: “It’s not something I’m proud of.

“For a while we did this almost every week. We made a fair bit of money. We could make deals with the opposing captain about, for example, betting on the first throw, the first corner, who started with the ball, a yellow card or a penalty.

“Those were the sorts of thing we had influence over.”

But Lundekvam insisted he and his team-mates had never doctored the result of a game.

He added: “The results were never on the agenda. That is something I would never have done. We were professional competitors. Even though what we did, of course, was illegal, it was just a fun thing.”

The English and global football authorities, not to mention the police and the Premier League’s millions of fans worldwide, are unlikely to take the same view.

Betting on penalties, in particular, would take the fixing into new territory since the outcome of matches would clearly be affected if a goal was scored.

And Lundekvam, who fell into cocaine and alcohol abuse after retiring in 2008, insists it was not just Saints players who were breaking the law and FA rules.

He declared: “I know it happened at other clubs as well.

“We footballers live in a bubble. It was part of the lifestyle and the excitement. Whatever we could bet on, we bet on.”


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...lows-lid-on-football-fraud.html#ixzz27h1qouIL

 

Give the man a ****ing sausage.

 

We could get a 17 foot statue of Altidore nutting Alan Hutton in Queen Victoria Square, a bit of one upmanship.

 

As you didnt put FACT I refuse to believe it.

Anyway Sinatra's of Italian descent, so your saying Frank's bent then??

 

I'm assuming this is aimed at me, and if it is I never once said there isnt corruption. There is corruption in every country. I was pointing out that the incidents generally accepted in British media as forming a case to sugg estmatch fixing is rife are nothing of the sort nor did Almeyda in his autobiography suggest that he had been party to match fixing.

 

I've already said that I haven't read the autobiography so it may be out of context. I was just pointing out to him chin that what he'd said was not what the quote from almeyda's autobiography.

Bum chin, I have to confess that I started this debate because I knew it wound you up and you would bite so apologies to all who've wasted their time on it. But a serious question. I always thought your opinion was that there is no match fixing in serie a. If that's right then you seem to accept that conte was found guilty of not reporting being approached to fix matches (although what I read was that he was found guilty of not.reporting match fixing whilst he was manager). Does that not suggest to you that there is the possibility of match fixing in italy?

 

I've already said that I haven't read the autobiography so it may be out of context. I was just pointing out to bum chin that what he'd said was not what the quote from almeyda's autobiography.

Bum chin, I have to confess that I started this debate because I knew it wound you up and you would bite so apologies to all who've wasted their time on it. But a serious question. I always thought your opinion was that there is no match fixing in serie a. If that's right then you seem to accept that conte was found guilty of not reporting being approached to fix matches (although what I read was that he was found guilty of not.reporting match fixing whilst he was manager). Does that not suggest to you that there is the possibility of match fixing in italy?

 

You're missing the point. My argument is that the British media continually report the investigations and their subsequent findings incorrectly. I can cast iron guarantee if I tune into ITV to watch the return Juve vs Chelsea game Andy ****ing Townsend will on every occasion state that Conte is banned from matchday involvment because he has been found guilty of match fixing when that plainly isnt true.

I dont know if match fixing has gone on - it quite possibly has - but neither Calciopoli nor the recent investigations found anyone guilty of match fixing - simple as - and as such they should not be reported as doing so. People including players have been found guilty of breaking Italian sporting law by requesting certain referees dont officiate their games and more recently for betting on the outcome of matches that they werent involved in which is illegal in Italy (and not in England I might add). As a result they should be punished, however it isnt match fixing and to say it is is a lie.

 

Everyone on planet earth knows Andy Townsend is clueless, but that didn't answer my question. I always thought that your stance was that there was no match fixing in Italy. Are you tempering that view or was I wrong all along?

 

To be blunt, you are wrong all along - I have NEVER said there is no match fixing in Italy. How on earth could I possibly know enough to say that? In the same way I would never say there is no match fixing in the Premier League, La Liga, The Snooker Premier League or the US Masters golf. I jkust dont know, I havent set up an investigation.

What I have said all along is that in the high-profile Calciopoli invesitagtion that saw Juve relegated and stripped of 2 titles and the recent illegal betting investigation nobody has been found guilty of match fixing in Italy. In Calciopoli nobody was even accused of match fixing yet that is not how it is reported in the UK.