Anybody else read the reports recently about Roma director Riccardo Viola confirming that his club gave French referee Michel Vautrot £50,000 ahead of the second leg of their semi-final against Dundee United in 1984?

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/foot...an-cup-semi-final-86908-23000167/

It's a stange situation to be in as a Dundee Utd and Roma fan....I had read that it was accepted that Roma had attempted to bribe the ref but now that it's been confirmed that the ref knew about and almost certainly accepted the bribe it heightens my frustration as a Utd fan just a bit....

Especially if you could have beaten Liverpool in the Final and taken away one of their five stars!

Why didn't Roma bribe the Final then?  speculation

If I remember rightly didn't Dundee United play appalling badly in the second leg anyway?
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'Il tifo e il nostro mestiere.'

You're right of course Lupo, United didn't do themselves justice in the 2nd leg in what was a hugely intimidating atmosphere. They had over-achieved to get there anyway and looking back it wasn't really a surpise that they went out to Roma.

My first reaction on hearing the rumours a few years back was that they must have bribed Ralph Milne as well because he missed a sitter early in the 2nd leg that would have put us 3-0 up on aggregate and probably out of sight!

As for it being speculation Duncan if you read the quotes from Riccardo Viola it's pretty clear -

Quote:

Viola is the son of Roma's late president, Dino, and was on the board of the Serie A club at the time of the semi-final. He said: "Roma gave a middle man 100 million lire (£50,000) destined for referee Vautrot. That is true and a shameful fact. "Spartaco Landini, the director of football at Genoa, came to see my father. He told him Vautrot was a friend of his and that we could get at him via another friend but the referee would have to be given 100million lire. "He said a dinner would be organised with the referee on the eve of the game and a signal to show the deal had been done would be demanded. "During the dinner a waiter went up to the referee saying 'Telephone call for Mr Vautrot'. That was the prearranged signal. "Vautrot left the table and when he returned said, 'My friend Paolo rang and he sends you his best wishes'. Then I got up, rang my father and told him, 'Message received'. "All this was done because we had a difficult game ahead of us against Dundee United. Going out of the competition would have had serious repercussions."

It doesn't make good reading does it! I've just re-read John Foot's 'Calcio - A History Of Italian Football' and unfortunately it seems it was an accepted side of the game then. Hopefully it's changed for the better now.
_________________
'Il tifo e il nostro mestiere.'

It doesn't make good reading does it! I've just re-read John Foot's 'Calcio - A History Of Italian Football' and unfortunately it seems it was an accepted side of the game then. Hopefully it's changed for the better now.
_________________
'Il tifo e il nostro mestiere.'

Agreed Lupo, I'm not saying it's always justified but if British ex-players from that era sometimes have a slight bias against Italian teams you can see where they are coming from. The more enlightened will recognise things have changed a lot in recent years (calciopoli excepted...) but it's worth knowing the circumstances to understand what they base their opinions on.

Hey, so I realize this is old news, but for anyone still curious about this, the entire match is available on YouTube in 10 parts, starting here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLi_kkGImXQ

The commentary is in Italian (by the inimitable Nando Martinelli), but the entire match is there.  I kept waiting and waiting for the referee to influence the match in Roma's favour, or to notice a pattern of inconsistent calls in Roma's favour, but there is absolutely nothing.  Either the ref didn't take the bribe or he considered it unnecessary to do anything since Roma already had the match completely in hand.  I also completely failed to note any kind of belligerent or unsportsmanlike behaviour from either team, in fact, the only person around the pitch who made any kind of fuss was McLean, who came out of his technical area 3 or 4 times.   A brief summary of the match's 'incidents':

4:00 of part 1, Dundee player is booked for a tackle from behind on Bruno Conti
8:13 of part 1, Bruno Conti's goal is disallowed for offside, Roberto Pruzzo was in an offside position and the shot came close to his feet
0:26 of part 3, Roberto Pruzzo scores for Roma
9:39 of part 3, Francesco Graziani goes down in the box, free kick to Dundee for simulation
7:30 of part 4, Roberto Pruzzo scores again for Roma
10:19 of part 5, Cerezo appeals for a penalty, goal kick
0:10 of part 6, Aldo Maldera booked, suspended for final
10:10 of part 6, Roberto Pruzzo taken down by the goalkeeper, stonewall penalty, converted by Agostino Di Bartolomei

I kept waiting for something to happen, but there's just... nothing.  The ref was strict, but definitely consistent, much to my surprise.  The ref had all kinds of opportunities to influence the match in Roma's favour, Aldo Maldera also appealed for a penalty when his cross hit a Dundee player's hand in a box, Bruno Conti scored a goal late on that was disallowed for offside, etc.

Lupo Pazzesco wrote:

It doesn't make good reading does it! I've just re-read John Foot's 'Calcio - A History Of Italian Football' and unfortunately it seems it was an accepted side of the game then. Hopefully it's changed for the better now.

I tried to find a way to phrase this tactfully but I've failed, so, um, that book is about the worst thing I've ever picked up.  A much better read is the new book Sport Italia, the author of which was recently interviewed on Football Italia, especially regarding the culture of corruption in calcio.  John Foot's book read like tabloid journalism, to me anyway.

Welcome to the forum fantas1sta, I haven't watched the whole painful episode since being allowed to watch it at school back in 1984 but considering the clear evidence now unearthed I think you're right in saying the ref "considered it unnecessary to do anything since Roma already had the match completely in hand.".

Unfortunately United froze under extremely intimidating circumstances and the ref never had the chance to unduly influence the game after all. There's a very good write up on the atmosphere surrounding the match here: http://aplaceinthestand.blogspot....1/03/wolves-are-still-hungry.html

Oh and for future reference we're called Dundee United and not "Dundee". There's another (some would say inferior...) team in the same city called Dundee and us Utd fans don't take too kindly to being confused with them.  

Tangerine Romanista wrote:

Welcome to the forum fantas1sta, I haven't watched the whole painful episode since being allowed to watch it at school back in 1984 but considering the clear evidence now unearthed I think you're right in saying the ref "considered it unnecessary to do anything since Roma already had the match completely in hand.". Unfortunately United froze under extremely intimidating circumstances and the ref never had the chance to unduly influence the game after all. There's a very good write up on the atmosphere surrounding the match here: http://aplaceinthestand.blogspot....1/03/wolves-are-still-hungry.html Oh and for future reference we're called Dundee United and not "Dundee". There's another (some would say inferior...) team in the same city called Dundee and us Utd fans don't take too kindly to being confused with them.

Hi, I did know that you guys are picky about it, I got told off for the very same thing on another forum a very long time ago, I forgot, won't happen again.    As it is, I just came across the match by chance while browsing an awesome YouTube channel called ASRoma2000 which has a lot of highlights and full matches from the 80s and 90s.

On a bit of an aside, admittedly knowing fairly little about it, it's strange how Scottish football has fallen so far since then, as Roma then went on to lose to a team mainly composed of Scottish, Irish and Welsh players.  I didn't really think about it until I read an article a year or so ago about England's unfortunate international record which argued that there was never really a period of English football dominance because most of the stars on the teams that were successful in European tournaments in the 70s and 80s weren't actually English, and upon looking at the teams of Leeds and Liverpool especially, it's a fair point.

Re the name, no worries fantas1sta, it's a common mistake for English and overseas broadcasters and fans to make. But in an amazing co-incidence the following image was taken from a BBC Scotland weather forecast at the weekend, so even people in Scotland mix us up sometimes as well.....



That's a great resource for old Roma clips by the way.

Re the Scottish influence on successful English teams in the 80s, if you check out the European trophy winning teams of Nottingham Forest, Ipswich Town and Aston Villa you'll see there was a fair representation of Scottish players in those as well, so it wasn't limited to Liverpool either.