Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Lapo Elkann" in English language version.
Juventus have been acquitted, the offending leagues (2004/2005 and 2005/2006) have been declared regular, and the reasons for the conviction of Luciano Moggi are vague; mostly, they condemn his position, that he was in a position to commit a crime. In short, be careful to enter a shop without surveillance because even if you don't steal, you would have had the opportunity. And go on to explain to your friends that you're honest people after the morbid and pro-sales campaign of the newspapers. ... a club has been acquitted, and no one has heard of it, and whoever has heard of it, they don't accept it. The verdict of 2006, made in a hurry, was acceptable, that of Naples was not. The problem then lies not so much in vulgar journalism as in readers who accept the truths that are convenient. Juventus was, rightly or wrongly, the best justification for the failures of others, and it was in popular sentiment, as evidenced by the new controversies concerning 'The System.' But how? Wasn't the rotten erased? The referees since 2006 make mistakes in good faith, the word of Massimo Moratti (the only 'honest'). ... it isn't a question of tifo, but of a critical spirit, of the desire to deepen and not be satisfied with the headlines (as did Oliviero Beha, a well-known Viola [Fiorentina] fan, who, however, drew conclusions outside the chorus because, despite enjoying it as a tifoso, he suffered as a journalist. He wasn't satisfied and went into depth. He was one of the few).
'Lapo Elkann talks about himself by emphasizing the history of the club and the shirt torn to shreds by a good Milan who knew how to play as a team more than the Bianconeri, but nothing more. And as a lover of Juve as he is, he lets it slip that the shirt and the history of the club deserve more love, respect, passion, and professionalism. Prerogatives all existing at the moment but we are obliged to reply to the good Lapo that they are not always enough to win. What he is looking for now was certainly there until Juve in 2006 and perhaps with higher quality enough to afford to win 7 championships, a Champions League, up to becoming club world champion.'
Why only Juventus? And why were they retried on a charge for which the same federal prosecutor's office acquitted them? Basically, how is it possible that they were tried and convicted of a crime (that of capital gains) that did not exist? How is it possible to arrive at an afflictive verdict without even indictment of the persons under investigation? And above all – this is the defensive thesis of the Juventus lawyers – the reasons for the sentence are 'tainted by illogicality and groundlessness'. Questions and statements that mix with feelings of anger and bewilderment that fuel the strong discontent of the community of tifosi. ... The sensation and fear ... fuel the idea that – as happened in 2006 – once again only one company was targeted.
De Luna: We consulted the company financial statements, and noted the escalation of the emoluments that Moggi, Giraudo, and Bettega received. We don't have certain elements to be able to say that at that moment there was an attempt to take over Juventus, but those figures are impressive. Furthermore, there are some anomalies of the Agnellis which leave the door open to this type of hypothesis. The Calciopoli investigation was born out of a Turin investigation by the prosecutor Guariniello on the Juventus doping case, [in which] the interceptions of Moggi's conversations with the referees emerge. Guariniello sends the files to the boss Maddalena, notes that there are no crimes from a criminal point of view, but perhaps from a sporting point of view. Maddalena keeps the files for three months, then sends them to the [Italian] Football Federation. This period lasts a little over a year. Do you really [want to believe] that Juve didn't know what was going on? I have the impression that the Agnelli family took advantage of this opportunity to stop an attempt to take over the Moggi-Giraudo-Bettega company.
The Juventus defence, among other things, objects that a sum of several Articles 1 (unfair and dishonest sporting conduct) cannot lead to an indictment for Article 6 (sporting offence), using for example the metaphor that so many defamations do not carry a murder conviction: an unimpeachable objection. ... Hence the grotesque concept of 'standings altered without any match-fixing'. The 'Calciopoli' rulings state that there is no match-fixing. That the league under investigation, 2004–2005, is to be considered regular. But that the Juventus management has achieved effective standings advantages for Juventus FC even without altering the individual matches. In practice, Juventus was convicted of murder, with no one dead, no evidence, no accomplices, no murder weapon. Only for the presence of a hypothetical motive.
[p. 48] Corrado De Biase, the head of the investigations office at the time of the [1980s] betting scandal from 1980, ... about Juventus and the work of Zaccone, its lawyer: 'I can't know why the Juventus owners has moved in a certain way, but I would say, 99%, that the affair was skilfully managed by the leaders of the Turin club, starting with the request from Zaccone, who left everyone stunned. Zaccone isn't incompetent, as many believe, but he was only an actor in this story.' ... The point that makes me think that Zaccone acted on input from the owners is another, namely the way in which the top management of Juventus moved, with that fake appeal to the TAR. How, I wonder, you dismiss the directors, practically pleading guilty, then you watch inert and impassive a media and judicial destruction against your club and then you're threatening to resort to the TAR? It's the concept of closing the barn when the oxen have fled, if you think about it. ... [p. 50] I, on my own, can only reiterate the concept already expressed: a penalty of 8/10 points, a fine, and a ban of Moggi and Giraudo for 10/12 months, this was the appropriate penalty in my opinion. Any parallel with the story of 1980 is unthinkable: here there're no traces of offence, nor of money or checks. The environmental offence isn't a crime covered by any code, unless we're talking about air pollution.'
'... [p. 48] First you let yourself be massacred without lifting a finger, you have the title disassigned, you have the calendars drawn up for the European championships and cups, and then you threaten to go to the TAR, trumpeting everything in the newspapers? It looks much like a political move to appease the wrath of the fans, I think. If Zaccone, who is a man of value and experience, would have had the mandate to avoid the disaster he would have moved in a different way, in the sense that he would have pointed out these 'anomalies' in the time between the trial and the announcement of the verdicts. That, in fact, was the right moment to threaten to appeal to the TAR, when the sentences had not yet been written, but had to be done in camera caritatis, asking for a meeting with [p. 49] Ruperto, Sandulli, and Palazzi, and not in front of the journalists of La Gazzetta dello Sport. ... Please note that I'm not discussing the high strategy of the forensic art, but the basic principles, the ABC of the profession, the things that are taught to the boys who come to the studio to do a traineeship: if you, the defence attorney, think you have weapons to play, you ask for a meeting with the judge and the public prosecution, in the period between the trial and the verdict, and point out that, if the response is judged too severe, you will use them. And here there were weapons in industrial quantities. Then, in the face of a fait accompli, who takes the responsibility of stopping a machine that grinds billions of euros, so as to be the sixth industry in the country?'
It was enough to look at what happened in Portugal, where a top-flight team, relegated for ascertained collusion with (arrested) referees, was reinstated following the appeal made to the counterpart of the Italian TAR. For Juve it would have been even easier, because in the sporting trial no crime was ascertained and in the ordinary one the referees were all acquitted. The prosecutor had to resort to the 'anticipated crime' for something never committed or even thought of.
'Dear Lapo, my certainties about the perpetrators of this farce are known and always addressed to those who received the thanks of Blatter, president of Fifa at the time, for having Juve withdraw the appeal to the TAR which, if maintained, would have kept the club in Serie A.'
... the motivations in 558 pages are summarized as follows. 1) Leagues not altered (therefore leagues unjustly taken away from Juve...), matches not fixed, referees not corrupted, investigations conducted incorrectly by the investigators of the Public Prosecutor's Office (interceptions of the Carabinieri which were even manipulated in the confrontation in the Chamber). 2) The SIM cards, the foreign telephone cards that Moggi has distributed to some referees and designators, would be proof of the attempt to alter and condition the system, even without the effective demonstration of the rigged result. 3) Moggi's attitude, like a real 'telephone' boss, is invasive even when he tries to influence the [Italian Football Federation] and the national team, see the phone calls with Carraro and Lippi. 4) That these phone calls and this 'mafia' or 'sub-mafia' promiscuity aimed at 'creating criminal associations' turned out to be common practice in the environment as is evident, does not acquit Moggi and C.: and therefore here is the sentence. ... Finally point 1), the so-called positive part of the motivations, that is, in fact everything is regular. And then the scandal of 'Scommettopoli' [the Italian football scandal of 2011] in which it's coming out that the 2010–2011 league [won by Milan] as a whole with tricks is to be considered really and decidedly irregular? The Chief Prosecutor of Cremona, Di Martino, says so for now, while sports justice takes its time as always, but I fear that many will soon repeat it, unless everything is silenced. With all due respect to those who want the truth and think that Moggi has objectively become the 'scapegoat'. Does the framework of information that does not investigate, analyse, compare, and take sides out of ignorance or bias seem slightly clearer to you?
... the motivations in 558 pages are summarized as follows. 1) Leagues not altered (therefore leagues unjustly taken away from Juve...), matches not fixed, referees not corrupted, investigations conducted incorrectly by the investigators of the Public Prosecutor's Office (interceptions of the Carabinieri which were even manipulated in the confrontation in the Chamber). 2) The SIM cards, the foreign telephone cards that Moggi has distributed to some referees and designators, would be proof of the attempt to alter and condition the system, even without the effective demonstration of the rigged result. 3) Moggi's attitude, like a real 'telephone' boss, is invasive even when he tries to influence the [Italian Football Federation] and the national team, see the phone calls with Carraro and Lippi. 4) That these phone calls and this 'mafia' or 'sub-mafia' promiscuity aimed at 'creating criminal associations' turned out to be common practice in the environment as is evident, does not acquit Moggi and C.: and therefore here is the sentence. ... Finally point 1), the so-called positive part of the motivations, that is, in fact everything is regular. And then the scandal of 'Scommettopoli' [the Italian football scandal of 2011] in which it's coming out that the 2010–2011 league [won by Milan] as a whole with tricks is to be considered really and decidedly irregular? The Chief Prosecutor of Cremona, Di Martino, says so for now, while sports justice takes its time as always, but I fear that many will soon repeat it, unless everything is silenced. With all due respect to those who want the truth and think that Moggi has objectively become the 'scapegoat'. Does the framework of information that does not investigate, analyse, compare, and take sides out of ignorance or bias seem slightly clearer to you?
It was enough to look at what happened in Portugal, where a top-flight team, relegated for ascertained collusion with (arrested) referees, was reinstated following the appeal made to the counterpart of the Italian TAR. For Juve it would have been even easier, because in the sporting trial no crime was ascertained and in the ordinary one the referees were all acquitted. The prosecutor had to resort to the 'anticipated crime' for something never committed or even thought of.
FIGC's actions in relegating Juventus and handing the title to Inter Milan were somewhat peculiar. Of course, Moggi and Juventus deserved punishment; that is not up for dispute. However, the severity of the ruling and the new location for the Scudetto was unprecedented and arguably should never have happened. The final ruling in the Calciopoli years later judged that Juventus had never breached article 6. As a result, the Serie A champions should never have encountered a shock 1–1 draw away to Rimini in the season's curtain-raiser. Nor should they have trounced Piacenza 4–0 in Turin or handed a 5–1 thrashing away to Arezzo in Tuscany. The findings stated that some club officials had violated article 6, but none had originated from Juventus. FIGC created a structured article violation with their decision-making. This means that instead of finding an article 6 breach, several article 1 violations were pieced together to create evidence damning to warrant relegation from Italy's top flight. Article 1 violations in Italian football usually command fines, bans, or points deductions, but certainly not relegation.
