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Monday, July 24, 2006
Mass exodus in Turin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s nearly down to the wire on the appeals by four Italian Serie A teams to prevent demotion, and Juventus, at the center of it all, is begging to keep its last two titles. That’s what the Turin superclub’s lawyers argued Monday, among other things, as it faces possible financial disaster due to penalties related to one of the worst match-fixing scandals in the history of the game.
The appeals panel is expected to rule on Tuesday whether to uphold a decision that sends Juve to Serie B with a 30-point deduction, a ban on European club play and stripping it of the last two Serie A crowns. Fiorentina and Lazio also are going down with smaller points deductions, while AC Milan is up, albeit with a 15-poind deduction.
Juventus players aren’t waiting around for a final adjudication: Fabio Cannavaro and Emerson are off to Real Madrid, Gianluca Zambrotta and Lilian Thuram are hooking up with Barcelona, and Patrick Vieira could be close to signing with Inter Milan. At this rate, only Buffon, Del Piero and Pavel Nedved have expressed an interest in staying with Juve, whose officials are claiming will be bankrupted. Here’s a good roundup of player moves and the match fixing appeals.
Even NPR offered this lengthy story today from its veteran Rome-based reporter, extending Off the Ball’s amazement at how soccer news continues to resonate in America after the World Cup.
This is an extraordinary story, to be sure, but I still maintain that the fairly good reception in the U.S. during the Cup reflects a deeper breakthrough on these shores than has occurred previously. There’s still a lot of discussion about ESPN’s coverage of the Cup:
“ESPN has a lot of money at stake in the sport, and decision-makers such as Scanlan and John Skipper, ESPN executive vice president of content, are hard-core world soccer fans. That’s good news for viewers, even those who disagree with the announcer selections. The final between France and Italy attracted 16.9 million viewers between ABC (11.9 million) and Univision (five million), the top show on television for its week. ‘Even after the U.S. was eliminated,’ Scanlan said, ‘fans were not turning away.’ “
Count ESPN as very bullish on soccer, then. That is a very significant development, indeed.
Two names new to OTB’s radar have expressed interest in bringing MLS to Atlanta, but this isn’t a new story. No mention here on whether they’ve checked out anything with the Silverbacks, who have been gradually building something out of nothing.
Yes, it would be great to have MLS here someday, but I’ve heard this (and written this) kind of story many times before. Owning and operating minor league baseball teams in small towns and cities is one thing; doing the same with top-division soccer in a scattered megalopolis famous for sporting indifference is quite another.
