FanShot

OT: Italian PM calls for soccer league to be suspended

18

A match-fixing scandal is rocking Italian soccer to the point that the Prime Minister, Mario Monti, has suggested they suspend the league for two or three years. They've arrested the Lazio team captain, are investigating the Juventus coach, and booted a player off their national team. This comes right on the heels of another scandal that saw seventeen players convicted in court, including two former national team players, and banned for up to five years. Banned for up to five years? These guys were FIXING GAMES. Ban them for life. By these standards, Pete Rose should certainly be reinstated on triple secret probation, since nobody doubts that he didn't fix games, the greatest on-field sports sin of all. Imagine what would happen here if the President suggested they suspend a sports league, like say NCAA football, over repeated cheating by many of the top teams. There would be an enormous uproar.