ROME, May 12: Italian football is being dragged through the mud once again as four leading Serie A teams are being investigated over match-rigging allegations.

If any eyebrows were being raised on Friday as the full scope of the gambling and match-fixing scandal unfolded, they should only have done so out of surprise that it has taken so long for another such huge fiasco to come to light.

Italian football has been riddled with match-fixing and payments to referees for years while the country's football authorities have only occasionally managed to clamp down on the perpetrators.

Only last season, in the most recent scandal, Serie B champions Genoa were demoted to Serie C1 after needlessly fixing their final game of the season against the already relegated and hapless Venezia.

Given Venezia had been relegated for weeks and Genoa had topped the standings all season, quite why Genoa president Enrico Preziosi felt the need to fix the match is mind-boggling.

But so he did and three days after Genoa won 3-2, player's agent Giuseppe Pagliara was caught leaving the offices of Preziosi's company, Italy's largest toy manufacturer, with 250,000 euros (320,000 dollars) in a suitcase.

Pagliara's client Vicente had put Venezia ahead in the 22nd minute at which point the Venice club's managing director Franco Dal Cin rang Pagliara saying: “What the hell's going on? What are they doing? They scored....Are they out of

their minds?”

Pagliara replied: “You know Vicente, that's the way he is, but there's plenty of time for them to equalise.”—Agencies