Italian Referee Out; Buffon’s World Cup Spot in Question

May 13th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

A string of scandals that have rocked Italy’s Serie A are now carrying over to the World Cup. On Saturday, Italy’s goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon was questioned by magistrates about allegations that he bet on football after a ban on such activity was enacted in 2005. This had led the Italian media to speculate that the world’s top paid keeper, and member of the World Cup Blog Readers’ XI, might lose his spot on the Azzurri.

“Now he has to defend himself, rather than the national team’s goal,” wrote leading daily Corriere della Sera.

Buffon’s lawyer admits that his client bet on foreign football matches in the past, but only before the new rules went into place.

Buffon’s fate will be known on Monday when Italy’s World Cup roster is announced. Despite the headlines, I think he’ll still be named to the team. What a serious blow it would be to Italy if one of the world’s best keepers was forced to stay at home.

One person who is not going to Germany for certain is referee Massimo De Santis. The Italian Football Federation has announced that De Santis and his two assistant referees will not be allowed to appear in the World Cup because they are under investigation for possible criminal wrongdoing. FIFA has announced that their spots will not be filled at the World Cup so there will now be 22 referees instead of 23.

There is never a good time for something like this to happen, but for this to all blow up a month away from the World Cup is simply a disaster. Whether this will impact other players besides Buffon remains to be seen, but undoubtedly there are some nervous football fans in Italy right about now.

Tags: Gianluigi Buffon, Italy, Massimo De Santis, scandal

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Comments

By libertino | May 23rd, 2006 at 5:12 pm

This whole thing is bullshit. While there is no difficulty in beleiving that Moggi and other “behind the scenes characters” have acted impropperly, the amount of coverage this has received before anything has been proven is most likely the result of pressures from Sepp Blatter himself – to draw attention away from his scandal-ridden career (all you have to do is google “Sepp Blatter corruption”, David Yallop’s book on Blatter, or Andrew Jenning’s book “Foul”, and you will find the depth to which this man is corrupt)and to give Italy, one of several football organisations Mr Blatter has problems with, a bad name going into the tournament. Check out what Blatter has been accused of by other countries, such as Spain and Turkey, and visit the ‘play the Game site’ and read “Ripping up soccer; the story behind the FIFA scandal” to understand how lesser teams such as Trinidad, Paraguay, Costa Rica and Angola have somehow managed to rise to the top of their groups.
Let the guilty be proven guilty before denouncing everything and everyone.

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