Home-Field Advantage

Des

pite its history of stellar play, Italy's professional soccer league is widely viewed by European rivals as the reputed home of the detested "dive"—the dramatically faked foul by players seeking an undeserved free kick or penalty shot. The ruse has become common on pro pitches across the Continent as an effective though dishonest manner of gaining a competitive advantage. Now, a growing squad of pro footballers in Europe are taking a dive in a different kind of scam: their use of forged or fraudulently attained European Union passports to sidestep limits on the number of non-E.U. players a team can employ.

Last week Italian tifosi switched their gaze from center field to the courtroom as Lazio's Argentine-born midfielder Juan Sebatian Veron faced a Roman judge on suspicion he'd obtained Italian citizenship using falsified documents. Upfield in the northern city of Udine, prosecutors grilled Inter Milan's native Uruguayan attacker Alvaro Recoba about his apparently forged Italian passport. Hours later, France's professional football league inflicted penalties on Saint-Etienne for having fielded at least three players who used fake passports. Curiously, the same body spared clubs from Monaco and Metz even though each had a player with fraudulent European citizenship on its roster.

The moves unveiled a counterfeit passport scandal engulfing French and Italian soccer and threatening to spill into other European leagues before it is over. A total of five footballers are under investigation in France for holding fake documents, and others may follow as police check the authenticity of all 78 foreign players using E.U.-issued passports. Italian authorities are looking into at least 20 cases of possible fraud among its stable of 178 non-Italian pros, and Spanish officials are checking the papers of the 63 players registered as E.U. nationals—54 of whom originate from Latin America. Meanwhile the English football authorities, who want to prevent the larcenous infection from spreading, have also convened a meeting this week with football's governing body FIFA to discuss measures to combat and punish bogus naturalization and passport forgery. Last week, U.K. Sports Minister Kate Hoey asked the National Criminal Intelligence Service to look into the passports of the 80 professional footballers in the English game who hold dual nationality, as well as the method by which those passports were obtained.

Up to now the considerable gains to be made by both players and clubs in faking European citizenship often outweighed the risks of getting caught. Since the 1995 Bosman Ruling struck down previous restrictions on player movement and granted E.U. nationals freedom to play wherever they please, domestic leagues have a maximum limit of three non-E.U. citizens whom teams can have ready to play on match day. To skirt that limit, European clubs recruiting in South America and Eastern Europe have put a premium on players who hold dual nationality in an E.U. country—or those claiming they can arrange naturalization. The result has been a surge in unfounded or questionable citizenship approvals by conniving administrations in some European countries, as well as the growth of networks outside Europe providing fake E.U. passports to Continent-bound footballers. Those spurious documents have enhanced the value of players like Recoba and Veron—who earn $4.2 million and $2.5 million a year, respectively—making them, if proved, among the most lavishly paid illegals.

But once true nationality is revealed, such players immediately become headaches for football authorities. Officials of Italy's Serie A have been lambasted by presumably guiltless clubs for awaiting legal rulings in fraud cases before punishing guilty individuals and teams. Though French league leaders have acted ahead of the courts, they have done so with considerably different degrees of severity—much to the chagrin of Saint-Etienne, whose six-point penalty in the standings left it a prime candidate for relegation as other accused clubs escaped unscathed. Italy says it will follow the controversial French example, and teams found fielding phony Europeans will be docked points in current standings—though neither league will consider opening the Pandora's box of reviewing final rankings of past seasons that may have been influenced by players claiming bogus citizenship.

The French and Italian mix of action has satisfied hardly anyone, and clubs feeling victimized by measures both adopted and not taken have promised to retaliate. "As long as we have legal recourse, this battle isn't over," warned Saint-Etienne president Alain Bompard, still fuming over the league's rugged disciplinary tackle. Such grumblings promise a soccer season of growing discontent in both countries—and a threat that such unease will spread to others as footballers exploit European rules of free movement using passports they're not entitled to.

With reporting by Greg Burke/Rome and Jennie James/London