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Number 99: Lucarelli playing to his adoring crowd |
Man of the people
How corrupt is the beautiful game? Top Italian footballer Christian Lucarelli took part in a debate on money in sport in London this week. Tom Foot reports
GOAL machine Cristiano Lucarelli is not your average footballer. His is the fairytale story of the local boy who spurned huge fortunes to follow his childhood dream.
A hot-shot in Serie A, he left Torino to fire lower-league minnows Livorno into the top league after 55 years in the doldrums.
“You can take your billion Lire [£500,000],” he said after signing. “Most people with that money buy a Ferrari or a yacht. But I have bought myself the shirt of Livorno.”
The Italian league is still reeling from the biggest corruption scandal in its history. Last year Juventus were docked two titles and relegated after match-fixing allegations were proven in what became known as the Calciopoli investigations.
The murky depths of the oligarchy running Italian football is not something most players would get involved in.
Certainly in this country they line-up like robots for post-match interviews that are so lacking journalists are forced to blow them way out of proportion.
But Lucarelli is different. He has accused referees of political bias and was fined 30,000 euros for his statements.
He says: “The stereotypical footballer is one that only thinks about what is going on the pitch. They say: ‘I’m not interested or able to talk about that’. But I am the opposite of this stereotype.
“When the government takes a decision,” says his agent, “the journalists ring Lucarelli to see what he thinks.”
Lucarelli was joined by his agent Carlo Pallavicino – who brokered the deal between Manchester United and this year’s player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo – in a debate at University College London in Bloomsbury on Monday.
The subject was Money, Politics and Violence: does Italian football have a future. Half the Italian sports media were there, chewing cigars most of them, and a legion of adoring fans.
When he crossed Gower Street, cool as cucumber wearing wide sunglasses deflecting the glare of paparazzi and afternoon sun, fans held clenched fists and chanted his name. They love him for his loyalty not his celebrity.
“This is the second time I’ve worn a suit,” he revealed. “Second after my wedding.”
We heard how as a boy Lucarelli dreamt not of playing for great sides like Milan or Juventus but Livorno.
He stood on the terraces as a boy and watched season after season, in total admiration, as they failed to lever themselves from the bottom division.
He says: “When I got my Livorno shirt it was like I was a kid who stumbled across a shop full of chocolates and sweets.”
On signing he immediately demanded the number 99 shirt after the ultra-left-wing group BAL was formed in 1999.
He wore a Che Guevara shirt underneath his strip sending the fans crazy but, according to commentators, irreparably damaging his chances of making the national side.
In 2005/6 he scored more than any other in the top league and this year is second only to Francesco Totti. The decision to omit him from the 2006 World Cup is regarded a disgrace by most Italians.
One game stood out from the 2004/05 season when he scored a brace against the enemy AC Milan, owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The match, said Pallavicino, was divided more by the “class struggle” than local rivalry.
Berlusconi’s team played host to most left-wing fans in the country. More than 11,000 – more than the average home gate for Livorno – travelled to the San Siro for the clash.
The fans sang the Red Flag and were fined for chanting “Ber—lus-coni, pe-zzo di mer-da” [The Prime Minister’s a piece of shit]. The club paid the fine through money mostly raised by the fans and Lucarelli himself.
John Foot, who called the meeting and is lecturer of Italian history at the university, said: “Calcio [Football] is no longer a game. It is difficult to define it as a sport. It certainly is very big business. Italian football had become similar to another very popular TV sport – American wrestling: violent, over-the-top, ridiculous, hysterical and fake. So Cristiano Lucarelli represents an exception to the rule.”
And how does the English Premiership compare to Italy?
“Let’s put it this way,” says Lucarelli. “If I had sovereign powers I would move Livorno to England.”
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