Witness reveals truth behind match-fixing scandal. Or perhaps not.

“Calciopoli a sensational testimony at the Processo di Napoli” screamed the headline of last Saturday’s Gazetta dello Sport, “This is how we fixed the referee draws.”

The headline promised an explanation of Italian football’s darkest hour.

One could only wonder what kind of trickery had been revealed during the Processo di Napoli, the criminal trial into the events of 2006’s Calciopoli scandal. When matches were allegedly fixed to help Juventus claim the 2005 and 2006 league titles. The headline implied that incontrovertible proof of Moggi and Co’s corruption would finally be delivered.

There has already been one Calcipoli trial in the summer of 2006, straight after the Azzurri’s World Cup triumph in Germany. That famously lead to Juventus’ demotion to the second tier, the stripping of two scudetti and the docking of points from Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina. But those sentences were handed down by a sporting court that was hastily put together by the Italian football federation (FIGC). That investigation lasted less than a month and was not a criminal trial.

Luciano Moggi, the Juventus general manager for twelve years from 1994, did not attend the first court case. The alleged mastermind of extensive match-fixing, Moggi decided to defend himself against the allegations in a criminal court.

The criminal trial started in January and has become known as il Processo di Napoli. Moggi, along with co-defendants, is facing a five-year jail term.

La Gazzetta’s article revolves around two statements from the testimony of Mandredi Martino, an ex-employee of the CAN, the national referee commission. Given the headline about how the selection of referees for games was fixed, most readers expected the statements to reveal the methods used, and to deliver indisputable proof of crimes. But proof has not been produced.

The statement reads; “It was my feeling during the draw of the referee for that match that something happened that was not right, because there was a strange cough by the designator Bergamo when the journalist chose the yellow referee ball”. It should be noted that all the balls were yellow and that a different journalist was sent each week at random to take part in the draw to demonstrate its fairness.

The statement above is unsubstantiated conjecture, something that carries little weight in the courtroom.

The second statement seems more compelling; “In the occasion of the first game of the 2004-2005 season I was asked by Pairetto and Bergamo [the referee designators] to insert ticket X [X being a certain match that he no longer remembered] inside a particularly dented ball”. But given that the process was for the match to be drawn first (by a referee designator), and only afterwards was the referee ball fished from the bowl (by the independent journalist), it is hard to see how placing a given match in a certain marked ball could have any outcome on the fairness of the draw. This obvious point was not noted in the paper.

Strangely, only one fragment of Martino’s cross-examination by the defence was reproduced by La Gazzetta. When asked why he had not revealed this earlier he replied, “Perhaps I did say it and the carabinieri [a branch of the police] did not include it in the statement”. The article then continues with more of Martino’s opinions. He focuses his attentions on Fiorentina, Lazio and Milan, but offers no factual evidence. These excerpts are hardly the damning testimony one would expect, having read the headline.

It is bad enough that La Gazzetta’s only reference to the cross-examination is the statement about the carabinieri. But what makes this omission even worse is that Martino, when questioned by the defence, promptly changed his story completely, and denied that it was a fix. A transcript of the cross-examination (available online) reveals the following exchange:

Prioreschi (for the defence): “Apart from your perception, we’ve understood that it was your feeling. Logically, the journalist picks and Bergamo coughs to send a message to the journalist?”

Martino: “No, no, no, nooo…”

This is shortly followed by:

Prioreschi: “But the cough, Bergamo does it when the journalist picks?”

Martino: “After the Milan-Juve match is drawn, yes, yes”.

Prioreschi: “So what is it then a message to the journalist?”

Martino: “No”

Prioreschi: “But the journalists were in collusion?”

Martino: “No! We didn’t know the journalist” [because they were sent at random].

It is worrying that a supposedly impartial newspaper like La Gazzetta dello Sport would publish a headline suggesting that a witness in the Processo di Napoli had given a damning testimony, revealing how the draws were fiddled, when in fact he had denied, under cross-examination, that it was a fix.

It becomes even more perplexing when one continues to read the transcript. During cross-examination there is a statement that reveals a flaw behind the entire match-fixing allegations. When the defence asked Martino, “Did it appear to you, that Bergamo and Pairetto ever gave indications to referees that they should favour one team instead of another?” his response was, “Never”. The follow-up question was, “Is that a categorical statement?” to which Martino replied, “Absolutely”.

What does all this mean for the trial? Who knows? There is still a long way to go. What is certain, however, is that Martino’s testimony was not the damning indictment that La Gazzetta’s headlines claimed. Their article was at best shoddy journalism and at worst biased. All football fans can do is to wait and see the outcome of the Processo di Napoli and hope that the trial proves to be more honest and impartial than the newspaper’s report on the case.

*The article refers to the 7/11/2009 edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport

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