jose - soccer

Inter is leading the league by one point over Roma going into the last game, but the club has had a clamorous end to the season after a series of faltering performances and dressing room clashes.
The Daily Telegraph says yesterday, the club's tailor, Domenico Brescia, 55, was revealed to be a convicted murderer who is close to the Crisafulli Mafia clan.
Brescia is also thought by police to be a cocaine dealer, and his conversations with several Inter players and Roberto Mancini, the manager, were recorded by investigators
The transcripts of over 2,000 phone calls between Brescia and Mancini, Marco Materazzi, Sinisa Mihajlovic and other members of the club were leaked. The vast majority of the phone calls were mundane and concerned tickets to matches, or alterations to clothes.
However, in one call Mr Mancini is recorded discussing Daniele Bizzozzero, a Mafioso associate of Brescia's who had fled to Monte Carlo and then Paris in a bid to escape the police.
"What happened to him," Mr Mancini is heard asking. "How was he arrested? I told him to stay [in Paris] and wait for a pardon."
Brescia then said that Bizzozzero was stupid, to which Mr Mancini replied: "He has always behaved well with me."
Questions were immediately raised about why Mr Mancini was discussing the fate of a criminal, and why he advised him to remain on the run. In other phone calls, Mr Mancini demanded "two coathangers" urgently and another Inter employee referred mysteriously to "packs of stuff" left in Brescia's car.
However, the police said they had no intention of prosecuting anyone at the club. The club cut all ties with Mr Brescia one month ago, when the full extent of his criminal past became known.
"We have only had commercial relations with Domenico Brescia," said a spokesman for the club. "He was our emergency tailor, seeing as his shop is very close to our Pinetina training ground. He has never been an Inter employee."
Brescia's lawyer, meanwhile, insisted he was close friends with several Inter players and had been visiting the training ground daily for 30 years.
The leak of the documents at such a sensitive time provoked a storm of outrage among Inter's fans, who insisted that the media was trying to unsettle the team.

Prior to football club Inter’s big match against Parma to win the scudetto, it was revealed that FC Inter players and managers had had phone conversations with known criminals tapped as part of an investigation into a drug dealing ring.

The Milan team’s former tailor, Domencio Brescia, is said to also be involved in cocaine deals, and has a record for murder and robbery to boot. Strange associations for the team who has always claimed to be the honest ones in the competition, especially after the "we was robbed" claims over the Juventus match fixing scandal a couple of years ago.

You might think the conversations between said tailor and club management would provide something juicy. But in one conversation between team manager Roberto Mancini and Brescia, they discussed trim cut trousers, team line-ups and a friend’s arrest in France (although a photo of a topless woman and mutual friend did change hands).
(source: tribalfootball.com, blogdolcevita.com)

It looks like another match fixing scandal could rock Italian football again after Inter Milan have been accused of drawing or losing matches to change betting odds. According to a report which was published by Italian Public Ministry in Friday's edition of Il Giornale has said that Inter Milan threw their lead in the title race towards the end of last season to increase gambling odds.

This enquiry that was carried out by Italian Police at the request of the Public Ministry who are investigating allegations regarding phone calls between former Inter coach Roberto Mancini (who was incharge of Inter Milan last season) and a man who is associated with the Mafia, he is called Domenico Brescia.

It is known that Brescia is an Inter Milan supporter who has been in trouble before with drug related allegations. During last season, from week 24 onwards, some betting agencies wouldn't take anymore bets on Inter Milan winning the Scudetto.

The report also says that Zlatan Ibrahimovic's return from injury was postponed on purpose and that on the penultimate match of the season (the day that Inter Milan won the Scudetto) Julio Cruz was told not to take the penalty and Marco Materazzi missed it. The last thing that Italian football needs right now is another match fixing scandal whether it is true or not. Hopefully it isn't true because the last thing that we want in football is this.

It has not been long since the Calciopoli was unearthed from the depths of the Serie A wherein some of the biggest clubs in Italy were put to shame as their dirty linen was washed in public. This was not only a defamation of the clubs involved, but also a black mark in the history of the top flight that has only in recent times begun to regain the respect that it once lost.

Presently, another scandal has rocked the country as the Milan based daily Il Giornale published a report from the Italian Public Ministry that accuses Inter of throwing away matches in order to facilitate better odds towards their winning the Scudetto last season.

It is believed that the report released by the Public Ministry picks up pace sometime in the second half of the season, and centres around a string of phone conversations between Roberto Mancini and Domenico Brescia, a convicted murderer who is said to have had links with the mafia.

While the club distanced themselves when it became known that they were dealing with someone with a criminal record, it remains a fact that Brescia was the emergency tailor for the Nerazzuri at some point, since that is where the problems are supposed to have begun.

The report is apparently alleging the club of delaying the return of Zlatan Ibrahimovic after an injury, only to unveil him in the last match of the season against Parma in which the striker scored twice, to lead the path to the Serie A title.

This will be a damaging time for Inter as well as the Serie A, which has come under severe criticism in recent times due to the shocking incidents that have come to light in the past. This revelation will do no good to the league that boasts so many big names and stars. That apart, this may derail the hopes that la Beneamata can bring home the Scudetto this season.

(source: footballitaliano, bleacherreport.com)