Event #2

Since the childhood many people used to buy clothes and accessories with label of famous clubs, they experience for all the successes and failures, they wanted to be more successful and beautiful like their favorite football players. Players are important people nowadays because they are symbols of success and examples of how average person can become rich and famous to achieve their hardworking and talent.

In 2006 there was a great corruption scandal in Italian football that influenced negatively not only Italian football but all sport industry in the world and consequences of the corruption scandal such as weakening of FC Juventus, AC Milan and domination of Inter harm football industry until today all around the world.

Since big money came to sport, clubs' revenues depend on the sports result and their performance. For example, Champion League UEFA is a business project and "for just reaching the Group Stage of the UEFA Champions League a club will earn €3.8 million, for simply participating in the 6 group stage game (so even if the club loses all 6) the teams get €3.3 million (€550,000 per match) and then for earning a draw in the group stage of the Champions League a club will get €400,000 (and €800,000 for a win)" (English-premier-league.suite101.com)Commercialization in sport and huge money impact encouraged clubs to make fraud and was the main reason of the corruption scandal in Italian football which damages repution of sport and vividly demostrates disadvantages of commercialization.

First, football is at the program of every Olympic Games and all figures of football, because it is a part of Olympic movement, should work under the principles of Olympism. It is important to understand what it means Olympism and to know the main goals of it from the side of ethics. (See more Olympic Charter)

Second, Italy is a very significant player in the soccer world and has rich traditions. Italy is four times World Champion and Italian football clubs are good candidates for sponsorship. All of them have a great history and they have lots of fans all across the globe. For example, according to Deloitte Football Money League, Juventus had total revenues €203.2m and Inter had €196.5m in 2009.

Third, this scandal demonstrated that idols (football players, coaches, and clubs) are not ideal, they are liars. Everything can be bought and everything can be sold in sold in sport. Nothing is fair everything is deception. This scandal is the collapse of ideals.

Fourth, the final punishments of the clubs were softer than original punishment. For example, Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio had to transfer to Serie B, Juventus had to transfer to Serie C1, (BBC news) but finally as we know the first three clubs staid in Serie A and only Juventus transferred to Serie B. It is hard to say what is the reason to make punishment softer was, but I think that it was because of commercialization on sport and big political influence of Agnelli family which owns FIAT and FC Juventus and Silvio Berlusconi who is a famous Italian politician, media-magnet, and FC Milan’s owner.

Finally,this incident and Court’s decision was shown to young people that it is possible to buy “success” and will not be punished, if you are a part of the system, where money and the media play more important role than “Fair Play” principles.

References:
Stefan Coerts “Top 20 Deloitte Money Football League In Full” 2 March 2010,
www.goal.com/en/news/755/europe/2010/03/02/1813235/top-20-deloitte-money-football-league-in-full
BBC Sport Football staff, “Italian trio relegated to Serie B“, 14 July 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/5164194.stm
Read Mathrew, "UEFA Champions League Prize Money 2010 and TV Rights Revenue", May 12 2010, http://english-premier-league.suite101.com/article.cfm/uefa-champions-league-prize-money-2010-and-tv-rights-revenue#ixzz0o7CYrwYv


Olympic Charter, http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_122.pdf, p.11, 14