8 Football Teams Who Were Stripped Of Their League Titles

The Allemandi Affair was far from the end of match-fixing controversies in Italian football. Indeed, by the mid-2000s bribery and corruption was endemic and a scandal of unprecedented scale was about to break. The revoking of the 2005 Serie B title would be just the beginning.

Going into the final day of the 2004-05 season in the Italian second tier, just two points separated four teams. Second placed Genoa, Italy's oldest football club, were looking to secure a place back in Serie A for the first time in a decade with a match against already relegated and heavily in debt Venezia.

A 3-2 victory for Genoa not only secured them promotion, but, thanks to leaders Empoli crashing to a 4-1 loss at Bari, the title as well. It was a title that lasted all of three days.

It would soon transpire, when €250,000 was found in the car of Venezia general manager Giuseppe Pagliara, that Pagliara had been paid by Genoa directors for his club to throw the game.

The Italian Football Federation responded by stripping Genoa of the title and placing them instead at the bottom of the final Serie B table, resulting in instant relegation to Serie C1.

In the trial it also came out that Genoa's promotion rivals Torino had themselves tried to funnel cash to Venezia with the intent of encouraging the already relegated club to play harder against Genoa. It was too late to punish the Venetians, however, as the club had already gone bankrupt and folded.