Totonero 1980 or Totonero was a

match-fixing In organized sports, match fixing (also known as game fixing, race fixing, throwing, rigging, hippodroming, or more generally sports fixing) is the act of playing or officiating a contest with the intention of achieving a predetermined result, v ...

scandal in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

in 1980 in

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

and

Serie B The Serie B (), officially known as Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had b ...

. The participants in this scandal were

Avellino Avellino () is a city and ''comune'', capital of the province of Avellino in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is situated in a plain surrounded by mountains east of Naples and is an important hub on the road from Salerno to Benevento. ...

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

Lazio Lazio ( , ; ) or Latium ( , ; from Latium, the original Latin name, ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy, administrative regions of Italy. Situated in the Central Italy, central peninsular section of the country, it has 5,714,882 inhabitants an ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, and

Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...

of Serie A and

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

and

Taranto Taranto (; ; previously called Tarent in English) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Taranto, serving as an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base. Founded by Spartans ...

of Serie B, all of whom were declared guilty after the trials. Notably,

Paolo Rossi Paolo Rossi (; 23 September 1956 – 9 December 2020) was an Italian professional association football, footballer who played as a Striker (association football), striker. He led Italy national football team, Italy to the 1982 FIFA World Cup t ...

was suspended for three years (reduced to two on appeal), and upon his return helped

in their successful

1982 FIFA World Cup The 1982 FIFA World Cup was the 12th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Spain from 13 June to 11 July 1982. The tournament was won by Italy national footbal ...

campaign.

Background

In 1946, Italy introduced a state-run pool for citizens to bet on football, called the ''Totocalcio''. It was the only form of legalized football betting in the country until the late 1990s. For fans to win, they needed to correctly pick the outcome of 13 games, making it virtually impossible for the pool to be fixed since so many matches were involved. Because of this, the only way to bet on a single match or the winners of events like the

Coppa Italia Coppa Italia () is the annual domestic cup of Italian football. The knockout competition was organized by the DDS and the Lega Calcio until the 2009–10 season and by Lega Serie A ever since. Juventus is the competition's most successf ...

or Serie A was to bet with illegal

bookmaker A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays out bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds In probability theory, odds provide a measure of the probability of a particular outco ...

s. The plan was created in 1979 by restaurant owner Alvaro Trinca and his supplier Massimo Cruciani at Trinca's restaurant in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. The restaurant was a popular spot for many Lazio players, who agreed to fix matches in exchange for a cut of the money. The first match arranged to be fixed was a friendly between Lazio and Palermo on 1 November 1979, which ended in a draw as planned. However, many of the games did not end as planned, and Trinca and Cruciani reportedly lost over 100 million lire by February 1980 (worth around US$117,000 in 1980 dollars or over US$400,000 in 2022). On 1 March 1980, Trinca and Cruciani filed a report with Rome's Public Prosecutor with the names of 27 players and 13 clubs across Serie A and Serie B. Trinca was arrested eight days later and Cruciani three days after that. On 23 March, the

Guardia di Finanza The Guardia di Finanza (; G. di F. or GdF; or ) is an Italian militarised law enforcement agency under the Ministry of Economy and Finance (Italy), Ministry of Economy and Finance, instead of the Ministry of Defence (Italy), Ministry of Defence ...

arrested 13 players as well as Milan president Felice Colombo immediately after the final whistle of that day's matches. All of those arrested were acquitted of criminal charges because there was no law against match fixing in Italy at the time.

Punishments

Club punishments

(Serie A); relegated to Serie B.Italian FA under emergency rule

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC BBC Television, television, BBC Radio, radio and BBC Online, online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadc ...

, 16 May 2006. *

(Serie A); relegated to Serie B (10 million lire fine and 5 point penalty in original punishment). *

(Serie A); 5 point penalty in Serie A 1980–81. *

(Serie B); 5 point penalty in Serie B 1980–81 (acquitted in original verdict). *

(Serie B); 5 point penalty in Serie B 1980–81 (acquitted in original verdict).

Individual punishments

Presidents

* Felice Colombo (Milan); disbar. * Tommaso Fabretti (Bologna); 1 year suspension.

Players

* Stefano Pellegrini (Avellino); 6 year suspension. * (Lazio); 5 year suspension (disbar in original punishment). *

Enrico Albertosi Enrico "Ricky" Albertosi (; born 2 November 1939) is an Italian former footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Regarded as one of Italy's greatest ever goalkeepers, he had a successful club career, winning titles with Fiorentina, Cagliari, and Mi ...

(Milan); 4 year suspension (disbar in original punishment). * Bruno Giordano (Lazio); 3 year and 6 month suspension (1 year and 6 months in original punishment). *

Lionello Manfredonia Lionello Manfredonia (; born 27 November 1956 in Rome) is an Italians, Italian former Association football, footballer who played as a Defender (association football), defender or midfielder. He is currently the leader of the youth sector at Bre ...

(Lazio); 3 year and 6 month suspension (1 year and 6 months in original punishment). *

Carlo Petrini Carlo Petrini, AKA "Carlìn", (born 22 June 1949) is an Italian activist, author, and founder of the International Slow Food Movement, and ''Terra Madre'' festivals. Early life and activist career Petrini was born in the commune of Bra, pr ...

(Bologna); 3 year and 6 month suspension. * Guido Magherini (Palermo); 3 year and 6 month suspension (1 year and 6 months in original punishment). *

Giuseppe Savoldi Giuseppe Savoldi (; born 21 January 1947) is an Italian former professional football player and coach, who played during the sixties, seventies and eighties, as a forward. A versatile attacker, he played club football in Italy for Atalanta, Bo ...

(Bologna); 3 year and 6 month suspension. * (Taranto); 3 year suspension (1 year in original punishment). * Luciano Zecchini (Perugia); 3 year suspension. * Giuseppe Wilson (Lazio); 3 year suspension (disbar in original punishment). *

(Perugia); 2 years suspension (3 years in original punishment). * Franco Cordova (Avellino); 1 year and 2 month suspension. * Carlo Merlo (Lecce); 1 year suspension (1 year and 6 months in original punishment). * Giorgio Morini (Milan); 1 year suspension. *

Stefano Chiodi Stefano Chiodi (26 December 1956 – 4 November 2009) was an Italian professional footballer who played as a winger. Honours Club A.C. Milan *Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in It ...

(Milan); 6 month suspension. * Piergiorgio Negrisolo (Pescara); 5 month suspension (1 year in original punishment). * Maurizio Montesi (Lazio); 4 month suspension. * Franco Colomba (Bologna); 3 month suspension. * Oscar Damiani (Napoli); 3 month suspension (4 months in original punishment).

Aftermath

* Perugia and Taranto were both relegated from their respective leagues following the 1980–81 season. Perugia would have been relegated even without the point deduction, but Taranto would have been safe had they not been given the five point penalty. * All of the players whose bans were still active when Italy won the 1982 World Cup were reinstated soon after.

References

{{Football in Italy 1979–80 in Italian football Match fixing in association football History of football in Italy Sports betting scandals Sports scandals in Italy