Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti yesterday suggested that football should be suspended for two to three years in the wake of the latest match-fixing scandal.
“I’m not making a proposal and even less so a governmental one but it is something that sometimes I wish for as someone who has loved football for many years,” he said during a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.u00a0“Maybe it would benefit the development of our citizens to have a total suspension of this game for two or three years.u00a0“It’s particularly sad when a world, such as sport, that should express high values is guilty of the most reprehensible ones such as treachery, illegality and deceit.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Italy’s footballers travel to Poland in less than a week to take part in the European championships but their preparations were thrown into turmoil after police on Monday made a series of dawn raids as part of a match-fixing investigation. Investigators even searched the room of national team defender Domenico Criscito at the team hotel near Florence while elsewhere around the country, 19 people, including Lazio captain Stefano Mauri, were arrested.u00a0