On Wednesday evening, Milan got their revenge following the 2005 defeat in Istanbul. I guess it was bound to happen. One deflection and one really good pass was all it took. Fair enough. Except that on Wednesday night, Milan's players should have been digesting plates of antipasti, sipping expensive red wine and admiring each other's hairstyles instead of playing a European final.

The fact that matches in Serie A are largely decided by the greed of the referee and the size of the club owners' wallets may be as surprising as finding a funny pair of sunglasses in Elton John's wardrobe. However, I cannot get my head around the fact that a team can be found guilty of bribing match officials in their home country and still go on to lift the Champions League trophy a year later.

Compared to the five year ban of English teams following Heysel, one is led to the inevitable conclusion that bribery certainly does pay off. Of course, the Heysel tragedy had far more serious consequences than simply nicking three points from your opponent, but in reality it had nothing to do with football as such. It was all down to a combination of too much lager, too many people and not enough police. A tragedy, yes, but it had nothing to do with the game.

'Compared to the year-long ban of English teams following Heysel, one is led to the inevitable conclusion that bribery certainly does pay off'


Milan, on the other hand, have been found guilty of changing the rules of the game and paying their way to success. Still, UEFA choose to look the other way and keep their hands in their pockets (perhaps counting Silvio Berlusconi's money?).

This leads to a series of questions. How many years has this been going on? What do you have to do to earn a ban from European football? What is the price of a World Cup win?

Until UEFA confront Italian football and make it clear that football matches should be won on the pitch and not in a wallet, the Champions League is simply football's version of Tour de France: Everybody knows that the winner is cheating, but nobody complaints about it.