Remember the Italian match-fixing scandal in the Serie A? Well, 9 refs and linesmen are now suspended

I guess the football / soccer club Juventus thought everybody already forgot about this one.

THINK AGAIN. Seven referees and two linesmen were suspended by the Italian Referees Association (AIA) after being implicated in the match-fixing scandal which rocked the Italian Serie A football (I'll just call it football mmmkay?..) tournament last season.

The decision to suspend Serie A football referees Paolo Bertini, Stefano Cassara, Antonio Dattilo, Marco Gabriele, Gianluca Paparesta, Tiziano Pieri and Salvatore Racalbuto, and linesmen Marcello Ambrosino and Duccio Baglioni, was taken after public prosecutors in Naples closed their investigation on April 12 by making accusations against the officials.

The prosecutors named 48 people they suspected of match-fixing after finally dealing with the legal side of the affair. The Italian Referees Association (who I still don't understand why they have AIA initials...) initially reacted to the news by suspending two referees and two linesmen who were supposed to officiate at second division matches the following weekend.

Italian giants Juventus were stripped of their last two league titles and demoted to Serie B with a penalty of nine points after being found guilty of match-fixing. Talk about a nightmare eh?

AC Milan, Lazio, Fiorentina and Reggina were also implicated in the affair, but escaped with only points penalties for the beginning of the 2006-2007 Serie A season.

According to prosecutors, some of the referees handed out yellow cards to certain players, leading at times to their unavailability for future matches, especially against Juventus. There were also a number of questionable penalty or off-side decisions made to favor the teams implicated in the scandal.

Now, I wonder when will the NBA penalize the Miami Heat for the 2006 NBA Finals screw job they did to poor Dallas?

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