14 DAY TRIAL // We should really be thankful to the Calciopoli scandal. Really now? If we are to think of the whole match-fixing scandal that dominated the Italian Peninsula after the World Cup, we can really say that we learned lots of things from it. More, what happened with Juventus seems to encourage other Football Federations all over Europe to take immediate actions towards corruption in football.
I'm not saying that the verdicts in the Italian Serie A are right. Actually, I stated, earlier this month, that the players should be the last to pay for what their officials have done. If it were for me, I would have probably jailed the officials and let the players do their job in Serie A. But that's why what happened in Italy was so good? because we can learn from both their mistakes and right choices.
In the past week, almost 6 Football Federations - from what we know so far - started taking severe actions against football corruption and tax-paying crooks. In Hungary, the most popular football team in the country's history has been relegated to their second league - for the first time in more than 100 years - because the club was facing bankruptcy and they didn't guarantee the payments for the next season.
Also, the Romanian Football Federation relegated Sportul Studentesc, the team who lost their UEFA Cup place in the last round of last season's championship, because their president failed to pay the club's taxes. In Cameroon, the referees are trying to get the clubs' owners to stop trying to bribe them before the matches. Even if 11 out of 16 teams still have a shot for the championship title, the refereeing body accused the clubs' officials of trying to influence the result of the matches played by their teams.
Turkey is also confronting with this issue, as 2 clubs are thought to be involved in match-fixing last season. In the last round, a team is believed to have intentionally lost a game, so that another one could benefit and stay in the league. Denizlispor is being accused of having tried to pay off 3 Malatyaspor players so that their side would lose the game against Gaziantepspor.
Another refereeing scandal seems to have struck Russia. The biggest club in Russian football, Spartak Moscow, fired through accusations of bias and corruption on referees. After their 2-2 draw against Tomsk, the Spartak officials accused lifetime rivals CSKA Moscow of trying to bribe the referees inside the Russian League.
And these are just a few examples of how the Europeans and African football federations - for the moment - have responded to the Calciopoli scandal. When seeing that Juventus, arguably the most prolific club in the history of Serie A, was relegated in Serie B because of the match-fixing scandal, all other football federations started believing. So they tried, little by little, to get rid of the wrongdoings in their own backyard.
What started off as the biggest football scandal in Italy has a good chance of becoming a true sport's revolution. And the Calciopoli scandal was just the precedent that the football federations all over the world needed to start "cleaning" their own domestic competitions.
Having said all that, as much as I disagree with the players taking the blame for what their officials have done wrong, I'll have to admit that the FIGC should not change its verdict. If they decided to set an example out of the 4 teams, they should go with it all the way. Otherwise, the others' belief in making things better and curing the football cancer (corruption) will forever be shattered. The "waves" the Calciopoli scandal has made all over the world will disappear and their example will no longer be a positive one. Let's not change the "guilty" verdict with the "guilty, but?" one.