On March 23 1980 the Totonero scandal eruprted – or, rather, the Financial Police of Italy made it public. The real investigation dragged for a long time and marked not only that season, but the next one as well. Essentially, it was a scheme for fixing matches, thus affecting winning and losing lottery bets. A black lottery, but players, clubs, and officials were involved. The principal protagonists were Milan, Lazio, Bologna, Perugia, Avellino, Taranto, and Palermo. The investigation worked its way slowly, so the season continued. Then the guilty were punished. Then new facts appeared. Then the punished cried innocense and the whole legal mess led to punishments changed, some carried right away, some delegated to the next season, players found guilty, then suspencions reduced or not. The media had a feast, of course, but originally nobody thought the investigation would produce any meaningful results. Surprisingly, it did: there were no longer untouchables in Italian football. Milan was pelegated to Serie B and its president Felice Colombo was dibarred for life. Lazio’s punishment was increased – from a 10 millions fine to relegation. All other clubs involved ended with 5 points punishment attached to the 1980-81 season. 20 players were also punished, three of them were originally banned from football for life, but eventually penalties were reduced. Finally, the biggest suspencion fell on Stefano Pellegrini (Avellino) – 6 years, and Franco Colomba (Bologna) and Oscar Damiani (Napoli) recieved the smallest ban – 3 months. The biggest news was the case of Paolo Rossi, but he was not the only big name involved in the scandal: Giuseppe Wilson (Lazio) got 3 years ban, Giuseppe Savoldi (Bologna) – 3 years and 6 months, Lionello Manfredonia (Lazio) – 3 years and 6 months, Bruno Giordano (Lazio) – 3 years and 6 months, Enrico Albertosi (Milan) – 4 years. Effectively, Albertosi suffered most – his original punishment was a ban for life, reduced later to 4 years, but the European champion of 1968 was already 40 years old, so practically any suspencion was ending his career. The veteran still came back – his ban was waved in 1982, thanks to Italy winning the World Cup, and he played two more seasons, but… in 5th Division for Elpidiense. A huge drop from Milan to semi-professional football. Paolo Rossi was, of course, the biggest news and the most controvercial one too – he claimed innosence, was found guilty and banned for 3 years at first. The original punishment was later reduced to 2 years and stayed at that. Rossi not only persisted he was not guilty, but cliams so to this very day. Years later he found support in some memoirs and journalistic investigations, but nothing concluisive is established in his favour. The most irritating part of Rossi’s case was that he was needed for the coming European championship finals, but he was punished anyway. Enough for the scandal – by the end of the 1979-80, it was still unfolding and really concerns only the First Division relegations.
On the field it was business as usual, not counting the scandal – the single point was king and the low scoring. 2-goals per game average was unimaginable already in Italy – the best scoring records were achieved by Inter – 44 goals, and Juventus – 42. Ten clubs did not reach even 1-goal per game average. 13 teams finished with more than 10 ties – Lazio and Udinese finished with 15. That is, they tied exactly half of their matches. The stagnated Italian football was losing fans and money, so the clubs were pushing for lifting the ban on foreign players in the hope of attracting the fans back to the stadiums and perhaps changing the game for better. The ban was lifted after the end of the season, so the Totonero scandal run along with exciting news of and speculations on big transfers. In any case, the season was played and finished. Pescara was the outsider this year.
4 wins, 8 ties – 16 points in total. Dead last and nothing surprising about it. Pescara, if playing in Serie A at all, were a relegation candidate.
Udinese finished 15th with 21 points. Again, not a surprise.
Catanzaro took he 14th place, a bit unlucky, for they ended only a point short from safety. None of the last three teams had anything in its favour and saying goodbye to Serie A was familiar to every one of them.
Lazio topped Catanzaro with 25 points and, by the final table, escaped relegation, finishing 13th. Decline settled soon after winning the title in 1973, so their lowly place was hardly a big news. But compared to others at the end of the table, Lazio appeared much stronger – they had Wilson, Giordano, Manfredonia, and D’Amico. The remains of the champion squad were, unfortunately, just that – remains. It may look strange today to see Lazio that low, but the club was not among the big Italian clubs in the 1970s and played in second division in the 1960s, so it was hardly shocking to see them down. And down they went after found heavily involved in the Totonero scandal. Along with Milan, they were relegated as a punishment.
Milan finished 3rd and although they were not really involved in the race for the title, were nothing like Lazio – the team was strong, they won the championship the previous year. By now, Milan was strong only by contemporary Italian measures – it was not the great team of the 1960s, it was not much by European standards, it had problems, especially in the attacking line, but it had clout. Yet, Milan was relegated with Lazio and Catanzaro and Udinese were saved.