At least over the last three or so years, football has actually been on the back-burner when it comes to the Serie A. After Milan's Champion's League win in 2006, little has looked up for the league with slumping attendance and overall absence of fresh mega stars. The downfall seemed to stem form the Calciopoli scandal that saw Juve relegated and stripped of past titles for match-fixing and other sporting irregularities (so, cheating).

Now, some years later, even with Ronaldinho's move and "the Special One's" ascent to the Inter thrown, the scandal still remains in the back of everyone's mind when it comes to Italian football.

So with Juve chairman Jean-Claude Blanc (French?) bringing up the scandal yet again, drawing attention away from actual football (where Juve sit surprisingly middle of the table), when will this scandal go away? The Director of Football seems reluctant to let go of the two league trophies won by "The Old Lady" that were taken away and also errily remarks that "the truth will one day come out" about the scandal itself.

The inability of Italian football to bounce back from ths dark days of the scandal might be a sign of trouble ahead, as seen here with a member of the Juve hierarchy still spending time on a scandal a few years old while the club sit middle of the table. While stadiums remain underwhelmingly underfilled and Italy continues to underperform in Europe since the '06 Milan crown, this year is make or break for the Mediterranean country. Who knows, perhaps Italian football could crash like the economy?