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Fair play? Not so much: Corruption in the Italian football

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Abstract

Not only football is one of the world's most popular sports, but it is also a multi-billion euro global business. Due to its large turnover, football may offer the stage for the commission of a wide variety of misconducts and corrupt activities. Progressively over the last decade, Italian football has severely suffered from a number of corruptive malpractices, in some cases also perpetrated with the aid of organised crime groups. A number of scandals have been put under the spotlight of public opinion, such as the ones of Calciopoli (“City of Football”) and of Calcio scommesse (“Football Bets”). In all, the search for profit seemed to have pushed the game into the background, and from the law enforcement investigations a widespread culture of illegality has emerged. Despite attracting a great deal of media attention and public demise, corrupt practices perpetrated within or through football organisations have seldom been analysed by scholars against the backdrop of relevant criminological perspectives. By drawing on documentary sources (judicial files and media news), this paper shall (1) categorise and describe different modalities and patterns of corrupt deals in the Italian football; (2) examine the findings through relevant criminological theories; and (3) identify systemic opportunities for corruption.

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Notes

  1. See http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Corruption/Integrity-in-sport .

  2. Tan Seet Eng was arrested in Singapore in late 2013 in a law enforcement operation coordinated by Interpol.

  3. “Corruption is an improbity or decay in the decision-making process in which a decision-maker (in a private corporation or in a public service) consents or demands to deviate from the criterion, which should rule his decision making, in exchange for a reward, the promise or expectation of it” (van Duyne 2001: 2, italics in the original). The notion of “corruption” has been widely depicted across legislation and academic disciplines as a mixture of bribery, fraud, mismanagement, and self-enrichment (Gardiner 1993; van Duyne 2001, 2004, 2010; Eicher 2009; Dormaels 2010).

  4. Mafias have traditionally been involved in gambling, but as a side activity. Since the end of gambling prohibitionism and changes in the betting regulation introduced by the Bersani Decree (2006), however, new possibilities for mafia infiltration in the betting sector have been opened up (Di Domizio and Fragassi 2010; Cantone and Di Feo 2012).

  5. We decided to focus on the decisions of the Italian Supreme Court and not on those of the “sportive justice” (“giustizia sportiva”), which is also tasked with assessing episodes of corruption occurred in the Italian football, for two main reasons. First, the so-called “giustizia sportiva” is a three-instance disciplinary apparatus set up by the Italian Federation of Football (FIGC), which is responsible for imposing disciplinary sanctions to sportive teams in cases that violate the ethical code. Since such disciplinary bodies (i.e., the giudice sportivo in first instance and the Commissione d’Appello Federale and Camera di Conciliazione e Arbitrato of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) in second and third instance) are not part of the judiciary, the assessment of facts and behaviors made by them does not have validity in a civil or criminal proceeding. Second, the cases that are usually tackled by the giustizia sportiva rely on a narrow definition of corruptive and fraudulent activities, which is limited to violations of the Federal Ethical Code. As a result, while concentrating on cases of illegal betting and match-fixing, disciplinary bodies have often disregarded the analysis of other episodes of corruptive behavior perpetrated by or through the football team, which we wanted to include in our analysis in order to take into consideration the broader picture.

  6. Judicial decisions may, in fact, refer to misbehaviors that occurred quite a long time before, but which (given the long duration of trials in Italy) may just recently have been dealt with by the Supreme Court.

  7. These are the major newspapers in Italy according to the data of Accreditamenti Diffusione Stampa [Press Diffusion Accreditation], retrievable from: http://www.adsnotizie.it/certif/index.php.

  8. As regards the media news, some of the episodes considered were clearly ascribable to multiple categories (e.g., financial crimes and sportive frauds); when this was the case, the news was counted in each category, since it could have been relevant to identifying different modalities of corrupt practices in each category, as well as to pinpoint links between them.

  9. For a complete overview of money laundering in sports, see TAFT GAFI (2009).

  10. The total value of illegal betting in Italy was estimated by the Guardia di Finanza (the law enforcement agency responsible for dealing with financial crime and smuggling) at about EUR 23 billion in 2013 (see http://www.sistemagiocoitalia.it/in-primo-piano/2-2014/gdf--23-miliardi-di-euro-giocati-illegalmente-in-italia-/).

  11. Even if a direct comparison between these two data sources cannot be done (we cannot compare cases with news, given that several news stories might refer to one single case), from Table 3 it clearly appears that media news reports extremely high figures as regards illegal betting and match fixing. While this can be easily explained by the media coverage of major scandals that affected Italian football, there might also be some under-reporting in national media of other corruptive malpractices. This hypothesis might serve as a basis for follow-up research; for instance, it might be useful to expand the research by looking at local newspapers to gather information about malpractices that did not gain national coverage.

  12. For each category and sub-category, we considered (and aggregated) cases that, according to the media news and the judicial decisions, referred to the same facts.

  13. Cass. pen. Sez. VI, Sent., (ud. 07-05-2013) 27-05-2013, n. 22931. Similarly, a sponsorship of a local football team disguised as a bribe can be observed also in a 2012 judgment (Cass. pen. Sez. VI, Sent., (ud. 15-11-2012) 27-11-2012, n. 46244), where the money was (indirectly) directed to a number of councilmen, enticed/lured to act on the mayor’s behalf and the technical office of the city hall, to facilitate the issuance of a new building permit.

  14. Cass. pen. Sez. V, Sent., (ud. 14-12-2011) 26-01-2012, n. 3234.

  15. Cass. pen. Sez. VI, (ud. 27-05-2008) 04-07-2008, n. 27326.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Cass. pen. Sez. V, Sent., (ud. 28-09-2012) 11-02-2013, n. 6726.

  18. Cass. pen. Sez. VI, Sent., (ud. 11-04-2012) 30-05-2012, n. 20924; media news, La Gazzetta dello Sport (June 2011) on the seizure of EUR 206 million in an operation countering the influence of the ‘Ndrangheta Pesce clan, which was using football as a tool to entering into business with other criminal groups; media news, La Repubblica (April 2013) on the arrest of the former managing director of Calcio Catania in a major operation tackling the connections among Cosa Nostra, the local entrepreneurial world, and local politics; media news, Il Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica (January 2014) on the arrest of entrepreneurs and people working in the public administration linked to the Camorra clan Contini.

  19. Cass. pen. Sez. V, Sent., (ud. 09-05-2012) 18-07-2012, n. 29036.

  20. See for example Cass. pen. Sez. V, Sent., (ud. 04-03-2010) 26-04-2010, n. 16259.

  21. Media news. Among others, Il Corriere della Sera (March 2009). Preziosi faced a major scandal also at his new club Genoa, when he was allegedly involved in a match-fixing episode involving Genoa and Venezia in 2005, when Genoa won promotion to Serie A with a victory over already-relegated Venezia on the last day of the season.

  22. Media news, La Repubblica (February 2006).

  23. Cass. pen. Sez. V, Sent., (ud. 29-03-2012) 12-06-2012, n. 23091; Cass. pen. Sez. V, Sent., (ud. 07-06-2011) 17-10-2011, n. 37370; Cass. pen. Sez. V, Sent., (ud. 04-05-2011) 20-07-2011, n. 28932.

  24. See http://www.adusbef.lombardia.it/notizie/1-ultime/463-inchiesta-parmalat-calcio.html.

  25. Cass. pen. Sez. V, Sent., (ud. 29-03-2012) 12-06-2012, n. 23091.

  26. Cass. pen. Sez. I, (ud. 27-11-2008) 18-02-2009, n. 6931.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Media news, Il Corriere della Sera (October 2014). Italease was charged with fraud concerning the derivative market, accounting irregularities, and money laundering between Austria and Switzerland.

  29. Cass. pen. Sez. III, Ord., (ud. 10-11-2009) 25-01-2010, n. 2993. Cass. pen. Sez. III, (ud. 03-04-2007) 22-05-2007, n. 19707 Stanley International Betting Ltd; Cass. pen. Sez. III, (ud. 28-03-2007) 09-05-2007, n. 17648.

  30. Cass. pen. Sez. III, (ud. 27-04-2007) 03-07-2007, n. 25170.

  31. Media news. Among others, La Repubblica (December 2011–2013).

  32. Media news, Il Corriere della Sera (February 2012).

  33. Media news, Il Corriere dello Sport (May 2012). Buffon was accused of illegal betting also in 2007, but he was cleared by all charges by the FIGC in 2007.

  34. Cass. pen. Sez. II, (ud. 29-03-2007) 31-05-2007, n. 21324.

  35. According to art.1 of Law N. 401/1989, to have sportive fraud doping has to be directed at changing the result of the competition.

  36. List found in Cass. pen. Sez. II, (ud. 29-03-2007) 31-05-2007, n. 21324.

  37. Cass. pen. Sez. II, (ud. 29-03-2007) 31-05-2007, n. 21324.

  38. Creatine is an integrator that, if given in high amounts, can stimulate and enhance sportive performances of athletes. The trade in creatine is criminalized by art. 445 of the Italian Criminal Code.

  39. Media news. Among others, La Repubblica (February 2005); La Gazzetta dello Sport (March 2005); Il Corriere della Sera (December 2005).

  40. Media news, Il Corriere dello Sport (June 2011).

  41. Cass. pen. Sez. IV, Sent., (ud. 17-05-2012) 11-09-2012, n. 34753; Cass. pen. Sez. II, Sent., (ud. 15-10-2010) 04-02-2011, n. 4189; Cass. pen. Sez. II, Sent., (ud. 15-10-2010) 04-02-2011, n. 4189; Cass. pen. Sez. III, Sent., (ud. 25-02-2010) 31-03-2010, n. 12562. See also footnote no.19.

  42. Cass. pen. Sez. III, Sent., (ud. 09-07-2009) 09-10-2009, n. 39321.

  43. Cass. pen. Sez. III, Sent., (ud. 09-07-2009) 09-10-2009, n. 39321.

  44. Cass. pen. Sez. III, Sent., (ud. 28-05-2009) 17-06-2009, n. 25126.

  45. Media news. Among others, La Repubblica (August 2006; October 2013). Calciopoli showed that corruption in the Italian football business was so endemic and systemic that it was compared by the public prosecutor Borrelli to “corruzione ambientale” (“environmental corruption”), as it was during the major Italian scandal for political corruption Mani Pulite (“Clean Hands”) in the 1990s.

  46. Media news, La Repubblica (January 2014); Il Corriere dello Sport (January 2014).

  47. Media news, La Gazzetta dello Sport (December 2013).

  48. Also the former prime minister Berlusconi, in one of his public speeches, underscored the “need” to pay bribes in business relations (especially when the business partner is based in developing countries and dictatorships). See http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2013/02/14/finmeccanica-berlusconi-tangenti-sono-necessita-che-non-si-puo-evitare/498797/.

  49. A system is a set of organized or consciously developed procedures and routines established or formulated to carry out a specific activity, manage a process, perform a duty, or solve a problem. As explained by Tilley (2005): 267, certain systems can be conductive to crime because they provide rewards for crime, make crime easy, facilitate its planning or its teaching, promote the creation of criminal networks, generate need, can supply likely offenders or targets, and can disinhibit, provoke, or legitimate crime.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Penal Law and Criminology, Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP), Ghent, Belgium

    Anna Di Ronco

  2. Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK

    Anita Lavorgna

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Di Ronco, A., Lavorgna, A. Fair play? Not so much: Corruption in the Italian football. Trends Organ Crim 18, 176–195 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-014-9233-9

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