The other day I was watching the movie "Eight Men Out."  It is the true story of eight Major League Baseball players, more commonly known as "The Black Sox," who were accused of fixing the World Series back in 1919.  The movie depicts the eight members of the Chicago White Sox as disgruntled employees who justify their actions by claiming to play for one of the greediest owners and biggest cheapskates in the game of baseball.  So some poor sap goes and bets on the White Sox to win the series.  He then loses his money, and after reading some of the comments written in national and local newspapers, he decides to press charges against the players.  While the players were found "not guilty" in trial court, the court of public opinion was too much for baseball to handle.  The newly appointed commissioner then handed down a decision to ban those players from the league for life.  That meant that the men considered at the time to be some of the best players in the game would never be placed in the Hall of Fame, and never get another chance to redeem themselves by playing the game they loved.  It was a controversial decision at the time, but a deserved one.

In the regular corporate world, similar tales of price-fixing or out-right fraud has caused multi-billion dollar corporations to go bust.  Enron, the most famous of this group, no longer exists, and its top members will most likely find themselves in a jail cell (except former CEO, Ken Lay, who was lucky enough to die before he went to prison).  Most of the employees of these companies had nothing to do with this controversy, but still found themselves "on the street" with finding a new job as their only remedy. 

While Juventus, the Italian Serie A champion for the last two consecutive years, received the biggest punishment in the wake of this scandal, it is not as severe as it may sound.  Stripped of their two league titles, ousted from the UEFA Champions' League, relegated to Serie B, and forced to begin the 2006/2007 season down 30 points, it sounds severe enough (not to mention that I'm sure they were fined, although I don't recall how much).  However, since most of their top-flight talent will turn their nose up at the idea of playing in Serie B, Juventus will be selling them off like hotcakes.  Talents like Fabio Cannavaro, who is already set to go to Real Madrid, Patrick Viera, and Pavel Nedved, not to mention a host of others, will not go cheaply.  This will give Juventus a chance to hire top-flight talent for the 2007/2008 season that could very well get them back into Serie A almost immediately.  I would be willing to bet that had such a scandal plauged the Dallas Cowboys, for instance, Jerry Jones would find himself in prison (okay, with his lawyer, probably some coushy work-release program), and his team auctioned off to the highest bidder with the league keeping the proceeds.  Football in America would never be the same.  Perhaps the same can be said of Italian futbol, but I'm new here, so who knows? 

What do you think of the punishments handed down?  Too severe?  Not severe enough?  Post a comment and let me know.