A window on the past: the Juventus fans still love Nedved, he hasn’t betrayed the club

Pavel Nedved, the winner of the Golden Ball for the best footballer of 2003, cannot play in Italian football for eight months. The fans of the Italian club call him Grande Paolo with respect and he will remain in their hearts. He did not betray the Old Lady when it was at its worst.

In May 2006, a corruption scandal involving match-fixing in Italy’s top football competition, Serie A, was uncovered through police wiretaps. In addition, several footballers were also investigated for illegal betting on the results of football matches.

The scandal came to light in the context of an investigation into doping at Juventus. The public prosecutor in Turin ordered the wiretapping of officials.

Recordings of general manager Luciano Moggi’s telephone conversations with several people involved in Italian football during the 2004/2005 season, which were also published by the Italian media, revealed that there was match-fixing, illegal betting and falsification of accounting records.

The sporting penalties were severe. Juventus lost two championship titles (2004/2005 and 2005/2006), did not participate in the Champions League, and were relegated to the second league with a penalty of nine points for the 2006/2007 season.

Some of the mainstays left the club – French stopper LilianThuram, Swedish marksman Zlatan Ibrahimovic and 2006 World Cup captain defender Fabio Cannavaro – but others stayed and helped the club’s quick return to Serie A despite the points handicap.

In addition to Italy’s 2006 world champions goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and the agile midfielder Alessandro Del Piero, or the French goal scorer David Trézeguet, the 1998 world champion, the Czech legionnaire Pavel Nedved, who came to the Old Lady, as the club’s nickname goes, in 2001 from Lazio Roma and became one of the most prominent figures in the history.

He has contributed to the escape from second division purgatory by scoring eleven goals, just short of becoming a full member of the Goal Weekly’s League Cannonballers’ Club, a record of one hundred goals in the top flight. He stopped at number 99..

That’s why he continues to be the darling of the fans, the renowned Tifosi, the lauded and cherished hero.

“Pavel is their idol because he didn’t leave the club in a difficult situation and helped it to come back,” says Massimo Franchi, head of football at the Turin-based newspaper Tutto Sport. “The fans will never forget him,” stressing that the Czech legend still has a strong position in Italy.

Even though he now has an eight-month ban.

Source: Tutto Sport, Juventus