The Totonero betting scandal

Match-fixing scheme saw players banned and clubs relegated

The front page of the sports daily Gazzetta dello
Sport, reporting "handcuffs in the stadiums"

Italian football fans learned the full list of punishments handed down as a consequence of the Totonero match-fixing scandal on this day in 1980.

Two Serie A clubs - AC Milan and Lazio - were relegated to Serie B. Three others in Serie A and two in Serie B were handed a penalty in the form of a five-point deduction in their respective league tables.

Of 20 players banned, some indefinitely, by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), half had represented the Italy national team. The most famous were Paolo Rossi, who would go on to be part of the Azzurri team that won the World Cup in Spain in 1982, and Enrico Albertosi, who had been goalkeeper in the Italian team that won the European championships in 1968.

Rossi, who scored six goals in Spain ‘82, would have missed the tournament had his sentence not been reduced, somewhat controversially, from three years to two.

Felice Colombo, then president of AC Milan, was banned from football for life, although the disqualification was later reduced to six years.

The scandal came about at a time when a state-run competition known as Totocalcio, similar to the football pools that were popular in Britain, was the only legal form of football betting in Italy.

To win, participants needed to correctly predict the outcome of 12 games, which was realistically too many for the competition to be fixed. However, bets on individual matches could be wagered with illegal bookmakers.

Paolo Rossi in the red Perugia, for whom
he was playing when the scandal broke

It was the existence of this football betting black market that persuaded a struggling Rome fruit and vegetable merchant, Massimo Cruciani, to approach one of his customers, restaurant owner Alvaro Trinca, with his idea for a match-fixing scheme.

Cruciani knew that Trinca’s La Lampara restaurant, near Piazza del Popolo in the centre of Rome, was popular with players from both AS Roma and their city rivals, Lazio.

The betting black market, known colloquially as totonero, was huge, worth billions of lire in turnover, so the potential was there to win large amounts of money. Cruciani and Trinca had no problem recruiting willing participants in their scheme, promising generous payments.

Milan president Colombo was on board at the start and with the help of two Milan players - Albertosi and Giorgio Marini - plus four from Lazio - Bruno Giordano, Lionello Manfredonia, Massimo Cacciatori and Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Wilson - the syndicate successfully fixed a Serie A match between the clubs on 6 January, 1980, which finished in a 2-1 win for Milan. It is said that they each received a share of some 20 million lire collected in winnings.

Yet subsequent matches did not go as planned, with Cruciani and Trinca soon suffering heavy losses. Facing bankruptcy, they took the bizarre decision to file a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office in Rome.

Despite the illegal nature of what they had been doing, they claimed they had been defrauded. On 1 March, 1980, they handed over the names of 27 players and 12 Serie A and B clubs that they alleged were involved.

Within a week, Trinca himself had been arrested, Cruciani turning himself in a few days later.  Rumours of player involvement in match rigging began to circulate. Then, on Sunday, 23 March - a match day - officers from the Guardia di Finanza - Italy’s fraud squad - simultaneously carried out dramatic raids at a number of stadiums.

Defendants in the first criminal trial of those accused
in the scandal. Paolo Rossi is second from the right.

Players were arrested in their playing kits as they left the field in AC Milan’s match with Torino, Roma’s clash with Perugia, the Pescara-Lazio game and Avellino against Cagliari, as well as at the fixtures involving Palermo and Genoa in Serie B.

The drama at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome was shown live on Rai Uno’s  90º minuto (90th Minute) football results show as a police car appeared on the perimeter running track shortly before the referee blew for time, officers emerging to arrest Perugia’s Mauro Della Martira and Luciano Zecchini.

In all, 14 players were detained, along with Colombo of Milan. They were taken to Rome’s Regina Coeli prison, where they were held on charges of complicity in aggravated and continued fraud. 

Rossi, then a Perugia player, was not among those held initially, but received a summons a few days later. The striker, who died in 2020 at the age of just 64m, always protested his innocence.

Despite the long legal process that followed, all of those arrested were ultimately acquitted of criminal charges, largely because fraud could not be proved and no laws existed in Italy at the time that applied to rigging sporting events.

Nonetheless, there was nothing to prevent the governing body of a sport imposing sanctions of their own. As soon as the legal proceedings had been concluded, the Italian Football Federation wasted no time in announcing their own response.

Although there have been a number of betting scandals in Italian football since Totonero, at the time it was unprecedented and the repercussions were such that it cast a dark shadow over football in Italy.

The circular layout of Piazza del Popolo is similar
to that of Bernini's plan for St Peter's Square

Travel tip:

Rome’s Piazza del Popolo can be found at the end of the Via del Corso, the long, straight thoroughfare stretching north from Piazza Venezia. The name of the square is often taken to mean the square “of the people”. In fact, many people believe Popolo derives from the Latin populus – poplar – after the trees from which the church of Santa Maria del Popolo is named. The piazza as it looks today was redesigned in neoclassical style between 1811 and 1822 by the architect Giuseppe Valadier, his circular layout reminiscent of Bernini's plan for St. Peter's Square. At the centre is an Egyptian obelisk, one of the tallest in Rome at 24m (79ft) - 36m (118ft) including the plinth - that was moved to the original square from the Circus Maximus in 1589. 

Rome's Stadio Olimpico, as it would have looked
in 1980, before it was rebuilt for Italia '90

Travel tip:

Rome's Stadio Olimpico, where part of the drama of Totonero unfolded on live television, was built between 1928 and 1938 as part of the Foro Mussolini (now Foro Italico), a sports complex Benito Mussolini hoped would enable Rome to host the 1944 Olympics had they taken place.  Originally named Stadio dei Cipressi and later Stadio dei Centomila, it was renamed when Rome won the bidding process for the 1960 Games, pipping the Swiss city of Lausanne.  Rebuilt for the 1990 football World Cup, it is now home to the Roma and Lazio football clubs and has hosted four European Cup/Champions League finals.

Also on this day:

1554: The death of painter Alessandro Bonvicino

1821: The birth of musician Giovanni Bottesini

1858: The birth of opera composer Giacomo Puccini

1908: The birth of sculptor Giacomo Manzù

1963: The birth of footballer Giuseppe Bergomi

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21 December

Giovanni Boccaccio – writer and scholar

Renaissance humanist who changed literature

One of the most important literary figures of the 14th century in Italy, Giovanni Boccaccio, died on this day in 1375 in Certaldo in Tuscany.  The greatest prose writer of his time in Europe, Boccaccio is still remembered as the writer of The Decameron, a collection of short stories and poetry, which influenced not only Italian literary development but that of the rest of Europe as well, including Geoffrey Chaucer in England and Miguel de Cervantes in Spain.  With the writers Dante Alighieri (Dante) and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), Boccaccio is considered one of the three most important figures in the history of Italian literature and, along with Petrarch, he raised vernacular literature to the level and status of the classics of antiquity.  Boccaccio is thought to have been born in about 1313.  He was the son of a merchant in Florence, Boccaccino di Chellino, and an unknown woman. His father later married Margherita dei Mardoli who came from a well off family. Boccaccio received a good education and an early introduction to the works of Dante from a tutor.  His father was appointed head of a bank in 1326 and the family moved to live in Naples.  Read more…

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Masaccio – Renaissance artist

Innovative painter had brief but brilliant career

The 15th century artist Masaccio was born on this day in 1401 in Tuscany.  He is now judged to have been the first truly great painter of the early Renaissance in Italy because of his skill at painting lifelike figures and his use of perspective.  Christened Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, the artist came into the world in a small town near Arezzo, which is now known as San Giovanni Valdarno.  Little is known about his early life but it is likely he would have moved to Florence to be apprenticed to an established artist while still young.  The first evidence of him definitely being in the city was when he joined the painters’ guild in Florence in 1422.  The name Masaccio derives from Maso, a shortened form of his first name, Tommaso. Maso has become Masaccio, meaning ‘clumsy or messy Maso’. But it may just have been given to him to distinguish him from his contemporary, Masolino Da Panicale.  Massaccio’s earliest known work is the San Giovenale Triptych painted in 1422, which is now in a museum near Florence . He went on to produce a wealth of wonderful paintings over the next six years.  Read more…

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Moira Orfei - circus owner and actress

‘Queen of the Big Top’ became cultural icon

Moira Orfei, an entertainer regarded as the Queen of the Italian circus and an actress who starred in more than 40 films, was born on this day in 1931 in Codroipo, a town in Friuli-Venezia Giulia about 25km (16 miles) southwest of Udine.  She had a trademark look that became so recognisable that advertising posters for the Moira Orfei Circus, which she founded in 1961 with her new husband, the circus acrobat and animal trainer Walter Nones, carried simply her face and the name 'Moira'. As a young woman, she was a strikingly glamorous Hollywood-style beauty but in later years she took to wearing heavy make-up, dark eye-liner and bright lipstick, topped off with her bouffant hair gathered up in a way that resembled a turban.  Her camped-up appearance made her an unlikely icon for Italy’s gay community.  Born Miranda Orfei, she spent her whole life in the circus. Her father, Riccardo, was a bareback horse rider and sometime clown; her mother, part of the Arata circus dynasty, gave birth to her in the family’s living trailer.  Growing up, she performed as a horse rider, acrobat and trapeze artist.  Read more…

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Strife-torn Rome turns to Vespasian

Elevation of military leader ends Year of Four Emperors

The ninth Roman emperor, Vespasian, began his 10-year rule on this day in 69AD, ending a period of civil war that brought the death of Nero and encompassed a series of short-lived administrations that became known as the Year of the Four Emperors.  Nero committed suicide in June 68 AD, having lost the support of the Praetorian Guard and been declared an enemy of the state by the Senate.  However, his successor, Galba, after initially having the support of the Praetorian Guard, quickly became unpopular.  On his march to Rome, he imposed heavy fines on or vengefully destroyed towns that did not declare their immediate allegiance to him and then refused to pay the bonuses he had promised the soldiers who had supported his elevation to power.  After he then had several senators and officials executed without trial on suspicion of conspiracy, the Germanic legions openly revolted and swore allegiance to their governor, Vitellius, proclaiming him as emperor.  Bribed by Marcus Salvius Otho, the Roman military commander, members of the Praetorian Guard set upon Galba in the Forum on January 15, 69AD and killed him.  Read more…

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Lorenzo Perosi - priest and composer

Puccini contemporary chose sacred music over opera

Don Lorenzo Perosi, a brilliant composer of sacred music who was musical director of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican for almost half a century, was born on this day in 1872 in the city of Tortona in Piedmont.  A devoutly religious man who was ordained as a priest at the age of 22, Perosi was a contemporary of Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni, both of whom he counted as close friends, but was the only member of the so-called Giovane Scuola of late 19th century and early 20th century composers who did not write opera.  Instead, he concentrated entirely on church music and was particularly noted for his large-scale oratorios, for which he enjoyed international fame.  Unlike Puccini and Mascagni, or others from the Giovane Scuola such as Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and Francesco Cilea, Perosi's work has not endured enough for him to be well known today.  Yet at his peak, which music scholars consider to be the period between his appointment as Maestro of the Choir of St Mark's in Venice in 1894 and a serious mental breakdown suffered in 1907, he was hugely admired by his fellows in the Giovane Scuola and beyond.  Read more…

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20 December

Giuliana Sgrena – journalist

War reporter who survived kidnapping in Iraq

The journalist Giuliana Sgrena, a war correspondent for an Italian newspaper who was kidnapped by insurgents while reporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was born on this day in 1948 in Masera, a village in Piedmont.  Sgrena, who was covering the conflict for the Rome daily Il Manifesto and the weekly German news magazine Die Welt, was seized outside Baghdad University on February 4, 2005.  During her 28 days in captivity, she was forced to appear in a video pleading that the demands of her abductors – the withdrawal of the 2,400 Italian troops from the multi-national force in Iraq – be met.  Those demands were rejected but the Italian authorities allegedly negotiated a $6 million payment to secure Sgrena’s release.  She was rescued by two Italian intelligence officers on March 4 only then to come under fire from United States forces en route to Baghdad International Airport.  In one of the most controversial incidents of the conflict, Major General Nicola Calipari, from the Italian military intelligence corps, was shot dead. Sgrena and the other intelligence officer were wounded.  Read more…

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Francesco Bentivegna – military leader

Patriotic baron executed in what was to become Mafia heartland

Baron Francesco Bentivegna, a Sicilian patriot, died on this day at Mezzojuso in Sicily in 1856.  Bentivegna led revolts against the Bourbon rulers of the island in the mid 19th century and became renowned for his bravery.  He was born in Corleone near Palermo - a modern day Mafia stronghold - and it is believed his parents originally intended him for the church.  But after leading his first revolt against the Bourbons in 1848 in Palermo he was appointed military governor of the Corleone district as a reward.  Within 16 months the Bourbon soldiers had reoccupied Palermo and offered all the rebels an amnesty if they pledged loyalty to their French rulers.  Bentivegna refused and again attempted to launch a coup, which was unsuccessful. Afterwards he had to live as a wanted fugitive, while continuing to try to organise revolutionaries.  He was arrested in 1853 but released in 1856, after which he began to plan a full-scale uprising against the occupying forces.  The Baron was betrayed by one of his compatriots and arrested. He was sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad on 20 December 1856.  Read more…

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Gigliola Cinquetti - singer and TV presenter

Eurovision win at 16 launched successful career

Gigliola Cinquetti, who was the first Italian to win the Eurovision Song Contest, was born on this day in 1947 in Verona.  She took the prize in Copenhagen in 1964 with Non ho l'età (I'm Not Old Enough), with music composed by Nicola Salerno and lyrics by Mario Panzeri.  Just 16 years old at the time, she scored an overwhelming victory, gaining 49 points from the judges. The next best song among 16 contenders, which was the United Kingdom entry I Love the Little Things, sung by Matt Monro, polled just 17 points.  Non ho l'età became a big hit, selling more than four million copies and even spending 17 weeks in the UK singles chart, where songs in foreign languages did not traditionally do well. It had already won Italy's prestigious Sanremo Music Festival, which served as the qualifying competition for Eurovision at that time.  Italy had finished third on two occasions previously at Eurovision, which had been launched in 1956. Domenico Modugno, singing Nel blu, dipinto di blu (later renamed Volare) was third in 1958, as was Emilio Pericoli in 1963, singing Uno per tutte.  None of the country's entries went so close until Cinquetti herself finished runner-up 10 years later with Sì.  Read more…

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San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio

Franciscan monk canonised in 1867

San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, whose feast day is celebrated on November 27 each year, was born Paolo Gerolamo Casanova on this day in 1676 in Porto Maurizio, which is now part of the port city of Imperia in Liguria.  Leonardo recovered from a serious illness developed soon after he became a priest and devoted the remaining 43 years of his life to preaching retreats and parish missions throughout Italy.  He was one of the main propagators of the Catholic rite of Via Crucis - the Way of the Cross - and established Stations of the Cross - reconstructions in paintings or sculpture of Christ’s journey to the cross - at more than 500 locations. He also set up numerous ritiri - houses of recollection.  Leonardo was a charismatic preacher who found favour with Popes Clement XII and Benedict XIV, who helped him spread his missions, which began in Tuscany, into central and southern Italy, inspiring religious fervour among the population.  The son of a ship’s captain from Porto Maurizio, the young Paolo was sent to Rome at the age of 13 to live with a wealthy uncle and study at the Jesuit Roman College. Read more…

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19 December

Italo Svevo - writer

Author who became the main character in somebody else’s novel

The novelist Italo Svevo was born Aron Ettore Schmitz on this day in 1861 in Trieste, which was then part of the Austrian Empire.  Schmitz took on the pseudonym, Italo Svevo, after writing his novel La Coscienza di Zeno - Zeno’s Conscience.  The novelist himself then became the inspiration for a fictional protagonist in a book by someone else. James Joyce, who was working in Trieste at the time, modelled the main character in Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, on his friend Svevo.  Svevo’s own novel, which revealed his deep interest in the theories of Sigmund Freud, received little interest at the time and might have sunk without trace if it had not been for the encouragement of Joyce, who regarded him as a neglected writer. Joyce helped Svevo get the novel translated into French and, after the translated version was highly praised, the Italian critics discovered it.  Svevo always spoke Italian as a second language because he usually spoke the dialect of Trieste where his novel is set and the story never looks outside the narrow confines of Trieste.  In the novel the main character seeks psychoanalysis to discover why he is addicted to nicotine.  Read more…

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Giulio Ricordi - music publisher

Entrepreneur who ‘discovered’ the great Giacomo Puccini 

Giulio Ricordi, who ran the Casa Ricordi publishing house during its peak years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and launched the career of the brilliant opera composer Giacomo Puccini, was born on this day in 1840 in Milan.  Casa Ricordi was founded by Giulio’s grandfather Giovanni in 1808 and remained in the family when Giovanni died in 1853 and his son, Tito - Giulio's father - took the helm.  Giulio became involved in 1863 after a distinguished military career in the special infantry corps known as the Bersaglieri. He had enrolled as a volunteer with the outbreak of the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859. He took part in the Siege of Gaeta and, after receiving a medal for military valour, was promoted to lieutenant.  During breaks in military activity, Giulio, a keen composer from an early age under the pseudonym of Jules Burgmein, wrote pieces of music, one of which was intended as a national anthem dedicated to Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, but which was instead adopted as the anthem of the Bersaglieri.  He left military service after his father, who had nurtured the career of the composer Giuseppe Verdi.  Read more…

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Alberto Tomba – Italy’s greatest skier

Playboy showman who won three Olympic golds

Italy’s greatest alpine ski racer, Alberto Tomba, was born on this day in 1966 in San Lazzaro di Savena, a town in Emilia-Romagna that now forms part of the metropolitan city of Bologna.  Tomba – popularly known as ‘Tomba la Bomba’ – won three Olympic gold medals, two World Championships and won no fewer than nine titles in thirteen World Cup seasons, between 1986 and 1998.  The only other Italian Alpine skiers with comparable records are Gustav Thoni, who won two Olympic golds and four World Championships in the 1970s, and Deborah Compagnoni, who won three golds at both the Olympics and the World Championships between 1992 and 1998.  Thoni would later be a member of Tomba’s coaching team.  Tomba had showmanship to match his talent on the slopes. Always eager to seek out the most chic nightclubs wherever he was competing, he would drive around the centre of Bologna in an open-topped Ferrari, flaunting both his wealth and his fame.  At his peak, he would arrive with his entourage in the exclusive ski resort at Aspen, Colorado to hold open house at his rented chalet on Buttermilk Mountain.  Read more…

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Gianni Brera - football journalist

Outspoken writer who embellished Italian language

Italy's football world lost one of its most influential personalities on this day in 1992 when a car crash near the town of Codogno in Lombardy claimed the life of the journalist Gianni Brera.  Brera, who was 73, had enjoyed a long and often controversial career in which his writing was famous not only for its literary quality but for his outspoken views.  He could be savage in his criticisms of players and allowed reputations to count for nothing.  His long-running feud with Gianni Rivera, the AC Milan midfielder regarded by many as one of Italian football's all-time greats, in some ways defined his career.  Yet the positions he occupied in Italian football journalism gained him enormous respect.  He rose to be editor-in-chief of La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy's biggest sports newspaper, before he was 30 and went on to write for Il Giorno, Il Giornale and La Repubblica among the country's heavyweight news dailies.  The intellectual La Repubblica for many years considered sport to be too trivial to be worthy of coverage, an attitude that persisted even through the 1970s. But the style and innovative brilliance of Brera's writing was a major factor in persuading them to drop their stance.  Read more…

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