One of the peaks of the career of the recently graduated Gianluigi Buffon is the gold of the 2006 World Championship. Do you remember that he almost flew past that tournament due to his own stupidity?
Because of the stakes.
It was really dangerous.
Buffon could have been punished right before the 2006 World Cup.
The end of 2005 was a turning point for footballers in Italy who loved sport. They adopted a law in which they clearly stated: you can’t play at bookmakers and choose football matches. Any.
Before that, there were indulgences for football players in the country: it was impossible to choose only those games where they themselves could enter the field. Immediately after the ban, the Italian police had more work to do. Investigations took place all over the country, and right before the 2006 World Cup, it broke out: according to the investigation, a group of Juventus players were gambling.
Under suspicion were goalkeeper Antonio Chimenti, defender Marc Juliano, midfielder Enzo Maresca and, in fact, Gianluigi Buffon. The investigation protocols indicated that a wiretap was hung on Buffon’s phone. So they found out that the keeper lost on choices in the region of two million euros.
All this leaked to the press – and began. Any press conference at the end of the Italian season, and then in the course of preparations for the World Cup, boiled down to the fact that Buffon calmly laid out to journalists that he made choices only until November 2005 (when the law came into force). At the same time, he chose events outside of Italy: matches of the Premier League or the Champions League.
As a result, in May 2006, a few days before the announcement of the composition for the World Cup, the goalkeeper was summoned for questioning to the Turin prosecutor’s office. In parallel, the police conducted searches at several of Gianluigi’s friends.and found traces of several accounts of a football player in different bookmakers. The goalkeeper registered in them under the name of a childhood friend from Parma, the money also came in and was withdrawn on behalf of a friend.
During interrogation, the footballer calmly answered all questions and cooperated with the investigator. In an interview with Sky Italia, the keeper summed up: “It is true that I made choices, but only when it was still allowed. I haven’t done anything like this since the ban went into effect. I’m clean and I want to go to the World Cup.”
The lawyer in the case was Luigi Chiappero, who would later be involved in many proceedings on the side of Juventus: from complaints about refereeing to constant aftershocks from Calciopoli. On the day of the interrogation, the lawyer went to the press and said:
“My client explained to the investigators that his behavior was always based on the observance of sports rules and, moreover, criminal law. The investigation will lead to a favorable resolution of the whole process,” he explained in an interview with La Repubblica. A few hours later, Buffon left the building of the procurators, no charges followed, and Marcello Lippi exhaled. So the keeper got into the application for the victorious World Cup, where he missed only twice: Zaccardo’s own goal and the same panenka Zidane.
In December, the investigation was curtailed, recognizing everyone as clean: Chimenti, Juliano, Maresca and Buffon. Gianluigi stated that he would never do this again.
Buffon was tested again in 2012 – now before the Euro
Six years later, Buffon was again hooked on rate control. In 2012, another check on match-fixing and football players’ choices thundered in Italy, and then they decided to check Buffon again, right before the Euro in Poland and Ukraine. On May 31, 2012, the Italian Guard published the goalkeeper’s report: they told about 14 checks from the Parma tobacco shop. In almost a year, Buffon paid owner Massimo Alfieri approximately 1.5 million euros.
Chiappero’s lawyer immediately called these expenses transfers intended to protect Buffon’s personal assets, although other players were closely involved due to the and match-fixing scandal. Gigi’s situation was resolved: the transfers were recorded as the purchase of 20 Rolex watches, which are stored in Buffon’s safe. In parallel, they provided account statements, which clearly show that not a single payment was associated with bookmakers. There was no evidence that at least one euro was spent on the choices.
“My accounts are so clean that I have nothing to fear. It’s a shame to see people playing with other people as if they were some kind of toys,” Buffon said in an interview with Football Italia. After Buffon left the investigation again, the investigation ruined the careers of another 15 players, Antonio Conte and Kakha Kaladze remained under suspicion.
Now Buffon has quietly finished in his native Parma, no more cases of this activity have been recorded. It seems that it’s time to satisfy the excitement – now it’s completely legal.