IF Juventus really were an Old Lady she'd be the 'don't make a fuss, dear' type who would scream the house down once the attention waned.

It's almost as if Catherine Tate had Juve in mind when she dreamed up her bad-mouthed gran character - especially in light of the match-fixing chaos that has erupted like a Uefa Vesuvius over Italian football.

Ironically, the whole Italian scandal is just so infuriatingly teenaged.

Image is everything. Consequences?

Che conseguenze?

The whole game in Italy seems to be more about how things look rather than how they are - and officials have been dragged along into that murky disparity between truth and fiction.

The English FA practically laughed off the suggestion that a scandal could erupt in this country.

Quite simply, the refs just wouldn't play ball.

You only need look at the World Cup to see the natural English discomfort with gamesmanship to know that the legendary stiff upper lip is still carving out an echo on the 21st century British fizzogs.

But Continental football is being sucked into a grimy black hole where winning fouls becomes a game in its own right.

How many times in the World Cup was someone unfairly shoved off the ball only for Mr Man in the Middle to wave play-on because it didn't look convincing enough?

Convincing, by the way, meaning theatrical. Comedia dell'arte - the original platform for Punch and Judy slapstick - has had one heck of a revival. Tessa Jowell, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, should be delighted.

And how many times did someone suffer a shot from the crowd to rival JFK's demise only for the replay to reveal that the actual culprit was the Invisible Man?

Too often.

When even that didn't work, Juventus cornered the ref and persuaded him to be a little more open to alternate possibilities - bullyboy tactics from the club that only came under scrutiny following a mid90s drug scandal revolving around players indulging in the kind of 'sweets' that not so much rot your teeth as your body and brain. More cheating.

Juve have been sent down in disgrace with a minus-30 point branding. Lazio and Fiorentina have also had the rug pulled from underneath them into Serie 'B', while AC Milan have the dubious honour of 'surviving' in Serie 'A' - with a 15 point deficit.

Unbelievably, it's not the first time AC Milan and Lazio have been sent down having been relegated in 1980 for the same crime.

Is it really possible to enjoy lifting the trophy if it's being lifted for you by strings being twitched from an outrageous height?

Maybe the pain of handing back two titles, losing players left right and centre and feeling the burn of Champions League poverty take hold will really give the Old Lady something to moan about.