Post by Salem6 on May 25, 2006 5:36:33 GMT
Coach Lippi gets the all clear as Italy play down scandal
Paolo Menicucci in Milan
Tuesday May 23, 2006
The Guardian
In the beginning of March, when Italy thrashed Germany 4-1 in a friendly in Florence, the Azzurri coach Marcello Lippi could hardly have imagined that his team's preparation for the finals would become so desperately difficult. But only yesterday did Lippi finally receive the green light to travel to Germany with the team after he had become involved in the corruption scandal which has rocked Italian football in recent weeks.
On Friday Lippi endured a three-hour grilling about his involvement with the GEA World football agency after a number of phone calls between him and Juventus's former general director Luciano Moggi were made public, some of them suggesting that Moggi had tried to influence the coach to pick players from GEA, which is run by Moggi's son Alessandro.
To complicate matters further, Lippi's son Davide also works for GEA, which is currently under investigation for "unfair competition with use of violence and threats". Lippi was not placed under investigation but was interviewed by magistrates as he may have relevant information to the case - and that was enough to fuel speculation about a possible resignation ahead of the World Cup.
"I won't resign because my conscience is clear," Lippi said yesterday after a meeting with Guido Rossi, the 75-year-old who has taken over from former Italian Football Federation (FIGC) president Franco Carraro. "I came here just to confirm my total trust and faith in Lippi's national team," Rossi said.
"I have never had any doubts about his position. It would have been crazy to point out Lippi as guilty for the current situation in Italian football. We have to punish the people who are responsible for what happened and Lippi is not one of them."
The former Juventus coach has already tried to explain his conversations with Moggi. "After eight years of working together, it is absolutely normal that he is calling me," Lippi said last week. "If they had intercepted all the calls I have had you would see that it was not only Juventus directors who called me. I get calls from all the clubs but I have never had any kind of pressure [in mind] when selecting my team."
The Italian players, meanwhile, have all come out to back the coach. "Lippi deserves full respect," said Luca Toni, who scored 31 goals for Fiorentina this season. "I talked to the rest of the team and everybody is behind Lippi. Everyone who is found guilty in this scandal must pay, but Lippi is not one of them."
The fans have not been as understanding. A group of supporters booed some of the players at Azzurri's base in Coverciano with goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who is currently under investigation for gambling irregularities, a particular target.
Prosecutors are investigating the movements of large sums of money between seven different bank accounts and studying telephone conversations recorded over a three-month period involving Buffon. Last week the goalkeeper voluntarily visited a Turin magistrate to give his version of events and admitted to betting on matches in the past, but said he had not done so since the FIGC outlawed players from betting on any football games.
Italians, meanwhile, are taking heart from the fact that the current situation is very similar to the one in 1982, when Italy won the World Cup after the build up had been dominated by a huge betting scandal."Italy have often reached great results in extremely difficult situations," Toni said. "Nobody would have bet anything on Italy's success ahead of the 1982 World Cup. We hope to emulate that team now."
football.guardian.co.uk/continentalfootball/story/0,,1780971,00.html