Euroscene: Rarely can an Italy coach have assembled his World Cup squad for pre-tournament training camp in quite the circumstances that applied to Marcello Lippi yesterday.
As the storm clouds generated by Italy's ongoing "Footballgate" scandal gather, threatening who knows what new fallout, Lippi and his squad were busy putting up the "business as usual" signs at the football federation centre of Coverciano, outside Florence.
Yet, will it be "business as usual"? For a start, will Lippi make it to Germany? Yesterday he received a welcome vote of confidence from Guido Rossi, the commissioner appointed last week to take over the running of the football federation. Will that suffice? As of now, no formal charges of any alleged misdoings have been levelled at Lippi, or indeed at anyone else, in relation to the investigations into alleged systematic match-fixing. Indeed, the federation's inquiry has yet to begin while the investigations being carried out by the public prosecutor's offices of Rome, Naples, Turin and Parma are still a long way from bringing formal charges against anyone.
For the time being, thanks to the hundreds of seemingly compromising phone tap transcripts carried in Italian dailies, we have a climate of outraged public opinion. Though it is clear Juventus director general Luciano Moggi, Juventus CEO Antonio Giraudo, referee Massimo de Santis and others may have some serious explaining to do in relation to allegations of match-fixing (72 games in the 2004-2005 season alone are under investigation), the position of Lippi is different.
Last Friday, he was summoned by magistrates in Rome, not in the role of key defendant but rather as "someone informed of the facts". He did, of course, work alongside Moggi for eight seasons at Juventus. His son Davide, along with Moggi's son Alessandro, is a key figure in the sports agency GEA World, which according to police investigators has 262 players, three club owners and 29 coaches on its books.
GEA, too, is under investigation in relation to charges of "Transfer Market Distortion Through The Use of Violence and Threatening Behaviour", with prosecutors keen to understand if Moggi snr used the company to wield influence and fix results. A number of the phone tap transcripts record conversations between Lippi and Luciano Moggi in which the Juventus director appears to dictate just which Juventus player should be called up and which rested.
In particular, Moggi is heard telling Lippi not to call up Juventus striker Alessandro del Piero for an end-of-season tour to North America, and he is also heard telling him to rest Juventus defender Fabio Cannavaro for a World Cup qualifier because the club need him for a forthcoming Serie A game. In a sense, there is nothing unusual about this. Top-level coaches all over the world are in regular contact with national coaches, often pleading a special cause for a particular player to be tried out or rested.
More disturbing is the allegation made by Stefano Antonelli, once agent to Juventus midfielder Manuel Blasi. He claims during a national team get-together, Davide Lippi convinced Blasi to join GEA because only that way could he be guaranteed regular call-ups for Italy, given "his father was the coach and kept an eye out for the GEA players".
Blasi is not among the 23 players called up for Germany by Lippi and, by and large, his squad contains just about all the best Italian players of the moment. Yet, suspicion is in the air. Goalkeeper Gigi Buffon is being investigated for his betting habits. Cannavaro's house was raided by tax inspectors last week with a view to illegalities regarding his move two seasons ago from Inter to Juventus.
Furthermore, comments last weekend from Fifa president Sepp Blatter and from World Cup organising committee president Franz Beckenbauer indicate the Italian team may not receive a warm welcome in Germany. Blatter called the scandal "the worst in the history of football" while Beckenbauer suggested "Italy will pay dearly" in terms of deflated morale and pressure at the World Cup.
There is no shortage of those who feel Lippi should step aside, arguing his presence will only make the players' task more difficult. One man who sees it differently is Lippi's predecessor as national coach, Giovanni Trapattoni, who says Lippi should stay where he is, adding: "His selections are as clear as day, there for all to see."
