Parma’s Scandal in Serie E

DBasia.news – The match-fixing scandal seems hard to be erased from Italy football. It’s still fresh in memory the Calciopoli huge scandal happened 12 years ago involving teams like AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, Reggina, and Juventus.

Some teams got the penalty point sanction and Juventus degraded to the Serie B. And now, the match-fixing is happening again in Italy and involving the promoted team, FC Parma.

Though the scale isn’t as huge as Calciopoli, the fact proved that the match-fixing scandal exists in Italy. FIGC as the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio gave 5 points penalty to Parma and the striker, Emanuele Calaio who banned from the matches for two years and also fine.

The sanction was given after the message from Calaio to two Spezia players, Filippo De Col and Claudio Terzi last season when Parma was playing in Serie B. When the two teams met, Calaio sent a message to them for not tackling him, so it would be easier for Parma to win 2-0 from Spezia, obviously violating FIGC regulation.

“The National Federal Tribunal (TFN), presided by Mario Antonio Scino, has given Parma a penalty of -5 points for the upcoming season in Serie A 2018-19 and a 2 year ban – on top of €20,000 – to the footballer Emanuele Calaio, regarding him being sued by the Federal prosecution for the suspicious text he sent before Spezia v Parma,” said FIGC statement.

“Therefore – as for the TFN’s issue – given the principles communicated earlier, this Tribunal believe proven that Calaio, by sending those texts to his former team-mate De Col, tried to fix the game as per article 7.1.

“Deeming irrelevant that he could have spoken only about his own safety. Unfortunately, even if you invite rivals to avoid tackles for your own safety, this can mean an attempt to alter the game,” the statement continued.

Calaio was playing in Spezia previously and met some players there. By the victory from Spezia, Parma got the second rank of Serie B and returned to Serie A in 4 years since they degraded to Serie D due to bankruptcy in 2015.

The first and second rank of Serie B had the chance to be promoted with no play-off phase. Parma was superior, head to head with Frosinone with the same point.