Professor Guido Rossi, appointed two weeks ago to sort out Italys football scandals, says that the situation is much worse than he anticipated. Match fixing, false accounting and transfer fixing has hit the big names in Italian football clubs in the past month.

Uncovering the methods that controlled the financial affairs, fixed the referees and dictated the results of major matches will not be easy. With 40 million football fans in Italy the football federation is anxious to restore confidence in the game.

The only good news is that Rossi is convinced that the sporting side of Italian football is not involved in the current scandal and the Italian national team playing in the World Cup, which begins in Germany on 9 June, should concentrate on playing football and winning matches for Italy.