Caso Genoa was an

Italian football Football ( it, calcio ) is the most popular sport in Italy. The Italy national football team is considered to be one of the best national teams in the world. They have won the FIFA World Cup four times (1934, 1938, 1982, 2006), trailing only ...

scandal in 2005. In the 2004–05 Serie B season,

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

won the

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...

championship and were set to be promoted to the

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

for the first time in 10 years. Genoa went into their final match of the season against

Venezia Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islan ...

on 11 June 2005, having already secured at least promotion play-off, and beat Venezia 3–2. However, three days later, it was discovered that

Stefano Capozucca Stefano is the Italian form of the masculine given name Στέφανος (Stefanos, Stephen). The name is of Greek origin, Στέφανος, meaning a person who made a significant achievement and has been crowned. In Orthodox Christianity the ach ...

, a director of Genoa, had paid Venezia director

Giuseppe Pagliara Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph, from Latin Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף. It is the most common name in Italy and is unique (97%) to it. The feminine form of the name is Giuse ...

€250,000 for his team to intentionally lose the match. It was later found that the principal protagonists behind the scandal were Genoa's president,

Enrico Preziosi Enrico Preziosi is an Italian entrepreneur. He runs a number of businesses and is most famous for have been the chairman ( it, presidente) of football club Genoa. Toys Preziosi is the chairman ( it, presidente) of the board of directors of Gioch ...

, and Venezia's president, Franco Dal Cin. On 8 August 2005, the

Italian Football Federation The Italian Football Federation ( it, Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio; FIGC), known colloquially as ''Federcalcio'', is the governing body of football in Italy. It is based in Rome and the technical department is in Coverciano, Florence. It ...

(FIGC) determined that Genoa would be relegated to

Serie C1 Lega Pro Prima Divisione was the third highest football (soccer), football league in Italy. It consisted of 33 teams, divided geographically into two divisions of 16 and 17 teams for group A and B respectively. Until 2008 it was known as Serie C1 ...

with a three-point penalty; it was the second time in Genoa's history that they had dropped out of the top two divisions, the first being in 1970. In addition, Preziosi, Dal Cin, Pagliara and Capozucca were each banned from Italian football for five years, while

Michele Dal Cin Michele (), is an Italian male given name, akin to the English male name Michael. Michele (pronounced ), is also an English female given name that is derived from the French Michèle. It is a variant spelling of the more common (and identically ...

was banned for three years and one month.

References

{{Match fixing in association football Association football controversies 2004–05 in Italian football 2005–06 in Italian football