ROME: This is one break World Cup winners Italy could definitely have done without. Already reeling under the impact of a massive match-fixing scandal involving top clubs in their domestic league, Italians learnt that the world's biggest sporting trophy -- which their national team won less than a week back -- was no longer in one piece.
Pictures on the front page of Italian newspaper Il Messaggero showed an extremely worried-looking Italian skipper Fabio Cannavaro staring at the Cup, then holding up what appeared to be a piece of green malachite that had broken off its base.
When the picture was taken, Cannavaro was sitting on the Italian team bus on his way to visit Gianluca Pessotto, the former Juventus player who is in hospital in Turin after falling from a window of the club's offices during the tournament.
The piece may have come off the 14-inch-high trophy on the bus, according to the newspaper which also claimed it was later glued back on. Officials were said to be so alarmed that they considered cancelling a victory parade for the team.
The Italian captain admitted that he slept with the trophy on the night of winning the final, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Meanwhile, an Italian sports tribunal looking into charges of match-fixing, has relegated top clubs Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina to the second division and docked AC Milan 15 points next season in a move seen as a body blow to the sport in the country.
TOI News
Pictures on the front page of Italian newspaper Il Messaggero showed an extremely worried-looking Italian skipper Fabio Cannavaro staring at the Cup, then holding up what appeared to be a piece of green malachite that had broken off its base.
When the picture was taken, Cannavaro was sitting on the Italian team bus on his way to visit Gianluca Pessotto, the former Juventus player who is in hospital in Turin after falling from a window of the club's offices during the tournament.
The piece may have come off the 14-inch-high trophy on the bus, according to the newspaper which also claimed it was later glued back on. Officials were said to be so alarmed that they considered cancelling a victory parade for the team.
The Italian captain admitted that he slept with the trophy on the night of winning the final, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Meanwhile, an Italian sports tribunal looking into charges of match-fixing, has relegated top clubs Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina to the second division and docked AC Milan 15 points next season in a move seen as a body blow to the sport in the country.
TOI News
