The only season in which the title of football champion was not awarded in Italy » The first major corruption case “Boot”

In this episode of “Unknown Histories,” here is a brief behind-the-scenes look at the “Allemandi Scandal,” as it came to be known. What happened in the first edition in which the elite echelon of the “Boot” bore the name “Divisione Nazionale”?

Totally counterintuitive, the direct victim of that corruption case was Juventus Torino, a club that later “retaliated” with a full head. And the collateral victim was Bologna, a team with “glue” among the fascist leaders of Italy in those years. How was it possible? Here's the story!

The Italian championship had just been rebranded and reorganized by the fascist system. In that season, it was played in two phases. In the first, there were two groups of ten teams each, and the top three ranked in each of the series would play what today we would call a “play-off”.

In the final stage, the two rivals from Turin, AC and Juventus (the titular champion of Italy), the two rivals from Milan, AC Milan and Inter, plus Bologna and Genoa, had qualified.

When “Toro” “worked” Juve

On June 5, 1927, a new episode of the “Derby della Molle”, AC Torino – Juventus, was scheduled. The “granata” team had an “immaculate” record – zero trophies -, while Juve barely boasted two titles (in the meantime they reached a total of 36 – a record in Italy). They were far from Genoa, who had nine titles (they didn't add any more!) or Pro Vercelli, who had won seven championships.

Both Turin rivals were “hungry” for trophies, but then, in the summer of 1927, it was the Turin side who did everything just to get their hands on the title.

So, it was the 7th stage out of a total of 10 in that play-off. “Toro” led the standings with 10 points, followed by Bologna and Juventus, both with 7 points.

Before that “Derby della Molle” scheduled for June 5, 1927, Guido Nani, a kind of economic director at “Toro”, contacted the student Francesco Gaudioso to make “an offer that cannot be refused” to his neighbor Luigi Allemandi, defender at Juventus.

Specifically, Luigi Allemandi was supposed to facilitate the victory of “Toro”, and in exchange for this service he would have earned 35,000 Italian pounds. He had received 25,000 as an “advance”, and the remaining 10,000 pounds was to be collected after the “grenade” team won the title.

They didn't give him the last promised installment

AC Torino won the derby 2-1, but one of Juventus' best players was Luigi Allemandi! Yes, fixed the man who had already collected 25,000 pounds to let him “softer”. In a chronicle in “La Stampa”, Allemandi was praised even by Vittorio Pozzo, who would later become the coach who would bring Italy the world titles in 1934 and 1938.

On July 3, 1927, “Toro” mathematically won the title, the first in its history. The final standings looked like this: 1. AC Torino – 14 points, 2. Bologna – 12 points, 3. Juventus – 11 points.

But Guido Nani “forgot” that he still owed Luigi Allemandi £10,000.

Not long after, the journalist Renato Ferminelli entered the scene, who lived in the same building where Allemandi and Gaudioso lived. By chance, the journalist would have heard them arguing over the amount promised to the player, but not collected.

Renato Ferminelli wrote the first articles about “Caso Allemandi” (no – “The Allemandi Case”).

Ferminelli's first article was published on July 29. A large-scale investigation was launched, during which the names of two other Juventus footballers appeared – Federico Munerati (striker with 111 goals scored for the “black and white” between 1922-1933) and Pietro Pastore (also a striker, still the youngest player to wear the “Old Lady” shirt: he debuted at 15 years and 222 days) – who they would also have been “smeared”.

The investigation led by Leandro Arpinati, the president of the Italian federation at the time, also uncovered alleged evidence incriminating Allemandi. There was talk of a torn letter found in a trash can on the street, but no one ever saw it!

On November 4, 1927, when the 1927-1928 season had already started, Torino's title was revoked, but it was not awarded to those from Bologna, who had finished in 2nd place.

Leandro Arpinati, a good friend of the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, decided that the title should not go to anyone, because he lived in Bologna and did not want to be interpreted as favoring his soul team.

Well, Bologna won six of the seven titles in the club's record during Benito Mussolini's tenure! But that's another discussion. In that year, 1927, nobody wanted to give him “lo scudetto”.

On November 21, 1927, Luigi Allemandi was suspended for life from sports activity, at only 24 years old. Along with him, Enrico Marone Cinzano, president of AC Torino, Eugenio Vogliotti, vice-president, Pietro Zanoncelli, secretary, and Guido Nani, “the head of mischief”, were also suspended “for life”. Another 17 people from the club received different punishments!

Luigi Allemandi appealed, citing the fact that there is no evidence to incriminate him. He claimed that the expensive car he was said to have bought with the £25,000 he received before the match was in fact his uncle's vehicle.

These “life” sentences only lasted a few months, until April 22, 1928, when the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini issued a general amnesty, erasing almost all criminal acts!

In parallel, the managers of “Toro” investigated and suspended sued the journalist who started the scandal, but after everything was wiped with the sponge they also gave up these actions in court.

I lived in a guesthouse in the “Madonna degli Angeli” square. I was studying law, my father was a notary. Juventus gave me 400 pounds a month, it was enough… From the tour match, which we won 1-0, something suspicious happened. One of the leaders had warned us: «I know that someone tried to buy some players from Juventus. Be careful, if they catch you, you are lost!». It was dirty, it's true, but it wasn't my fault. There were others
– Luigi Allemandi, years after that event

He made his debut again against Torino!

Luigi Allemandi did not stay in Turin, but transferred to Inter Milan in the very summer of 1927, before the “lifetime” suspension. The irony of fate, after receiving the right to play again, the defender made his debut again in a match supported by the “nerrazzuri” even against AC Torino.

At Inter, Allemandi quickly became a regular, staying for 8 seasons until 1935, making 193 appearances. He won a title, the one from the 1929-1930 edition. After the 8 seasons at Inter, he played for AS Roma, Venezia, and he played the last matches of his career in the shirt of Lazio, in the 1938-1939 season, 12 years away from the scandal in which he was involved.

World champion with Italy!

Allemandi reached football's “Everest” when he became world champion with the Italian national team in the final tournament in 1934, hosted by the “Boot” itself. Allemandi was the starter in all the “squadrei azzura” matches! Incredible fate for the footballer suspended “for life”.

24of selections gathered Luigi Allemandi in the Italian national team

How Toro Counts Titles

The only sanction dictated in the fall of 1927 for this first major corruption scandal in Italian football that remained valid was that dictated against the AC Torino club, the erasure of the 1926-1927 title.

“Toro” got revenge in the 1927 – 1928 edition, when it won the first title under the leadership of a coach, Tony Cargnelli, who previously played for two teams from Romania!

To this day, the Turin group has not come to terms with the title lost in 1927 and, in many histories of the group, the “grenade” in the titles appears as follows: 7+1. Seven are officially recognized, one is canceled almost 100 years ago.

The current management of FC Torino (that's the name of the club since 2005) has taken steps to recover that title, claiming that there is no evidence of corruption among Juventus players. But that title remains erased from the history of Italian football for now.

Meanwhile, cross-town rivals Juventus faced similar problems, having their 2004-05 and 2005-06 titles stripped in the wake of the infamous Calciopoli scandal. But those titles were not permanently canceled, but were transferred to the account of the Inter Milan team, which finished in 2nd place in both seasons.