The View from Bologna

Little fantasy was involved as since the 1990's Tangentopoli scandals, which rocked the political system, any public act of dodginess involving more than two people immediately gets tagged, as if on a production line, with an 'opoli'. Tangentopoli loosely translates as Bribeville, with tangenti being the equivalent of the 'little brown envelope' passed on to the political powers-that-be. So the football scandal, also dubbed 'calciopoli' stood for Moggiville or footballville - two equally sad and predictable places.

So the word won not for fantasy, one presumes, but rather for the deep impact the scandal supposedly had on the nation's psyche. In truth, though, one suspects that a football 'opoli' had to win for form's sake - much the same as Juventus have to win, regardless of whether their players have managed to triumph on the pitch*.

Were the wound really that deep then perhaps the fallout from the scandals would have been greater. Fans of the clubs involved (Juventus, A.C. Milan, Firenze, and Lazio) will all whinge, predictably, that their clubs were penalized, but all the penalties imposed over the summer had been lightened considerably over the starting months of the football championships. Sure, none of them will win Serie A this year, but all things considered that is the least one should have expected from the punishments, not the most.

Juventus have turned their penalty into a blessing, fighting their way back up in Serie B to an almost certain re-qualification into Serie-A at the end of the season. These plucky lads will have only missed out one year in the top league, and the story will no doubt turn into an epic film-for-tv within a year or two. Winning the actual games involved in this promotion battle is, it seems, a formality - with at least two games so far involving clamorous refereeing decisions which, at best, highlight a system of widespread incompetence that by chance always benefits Juventus*.

And what of Luciano Moggi, the man at the center of the scandal? Well, he left Juventus as the scandals broke. He was excluded from taking any part in the beautiful game for the next five years, by the sentence issued from the special tribunal set up to investigate the scandal. This monkey would bet (if betting weren't a mug's game, as aptly illustrated by 'calciopoli') that, just as the penalties imposed upon the teams have been lightened, so to will 'Lucky' Luciano's - either that or he will be 'rehabilitated' into a political party.

Football, in Italy, has achieved quasi-religious status because it manages to mirror society. Putting Moggiopoli and Tangentopoli alongside each other illustrates this well.

• Tangentopoli exploded, as if out of nowhere, revealing confirmation of what everyone seemed to already know - corruption was rife in Italian politics.
• Moggiopoli exploded as if out of nowhere, revealing confirmation of what everyone seemed to already know - match fixing and corruption was rife in Italy's Serie A



• Craxi took the unusual defence in parliament (before exiling himself from the legal process to his villa in Tunisia) of declaring himself guilty, along with the entire political system. He defined bribery as "the cost of politics".
• Silvio Berlusconi, owner of A.C.Milan ( and also a friend of Craxi's, whose business interests flourished under Craxi's government), said when Milan were entangled in 'Calciopoli' that 'Either everyone is guilty, or no-one'.



• Conspiracy theories arose almost immediately about the timing and beneficiaries of Tangentopoli. It was pointed out repeatedly, for example, that while the Socialist party was decimated by the scandals, its larger left-wing rival, the PCI (the communist party of Italy), remained relatively unscathed
• Internazionale Milan has been on the receiving end of many scathing comments as it heads towards an almost certain Serie-A title, in the absence of Juventus and with a points-penalised A.C Milan unable to make up the difference

The main difference between the two scandals, apart from their importance - yes, I do believe that corruption of the governing democratic system is more important than the corruption of a sport, however popular and lucrative it may be - is the rehabilitation period. Moggi has been banned from participating in Football for five years, but already has a commentary column in a national newspaper, and occasionaly appears as a pundit on sporting programmes. Craxi remained a virtual pariah until after his death, and is still far from fully rehabilitated into the nation's favour. This weekend, though, his son and daughter, both political representatives now in their own right, will hold an annual commerative service for their father where a left-wing government minister, for the first time, will attend. Revision of Craxi's role, despite his conviction (he was sentenced in absentia), seems probable.

This monkey reckons that, five years from now, Moggiopoli will be recognised by linguists as the moment when 'opoli' tagged onto a term ceased to mean scandal, and started to mean 'the diplomatic and temporary exit from public life, awaiting favourable conditions for return'

*It's only fair to point out that one of these 'lucky' incidents where incorrect refereeing decisions gave Juventus a victory was in the Juventus vs Bologna match. Bologna had a valid penalty denied, while Juventus had a phantom goal awarded...