Plus they're a bunch of dirty diving wankers

There's a smart piece by Robert Weintraub in Slate about the miserably sorry state of Italian soccer. He hits on many of the points that have convinced me to not waste my time watching Serie A--match fixing, corrupt referees, fascists. Weintraub's prescription for change is radical:

Soccer is as important a part of Italian culture as espresso or opera, so it's hard to imagine the fat lady singing for the sport of Zoff, Maldini, and Cannavaro. But an extraordinary intervention is needed. The domestic leagues should be shut down for at least the rest of this year, and Italian clubs should be banned from European competition. The clubs should be punished for the criminal actions of ultras representing them. There also needs to be a cleaving between politics and sport. Private ownership should be encouraged, foreign if necessary, so that the decision-making and direction of the clubs don't go through layers of people with nonsoccer agendas. Mostly, the Italian Football Association needs to understand how farcical their sport appears to outside eyes. Only then can Italy's favorite game restore some of its former luster. Or at least climb out of the gutter to the level of, say, Major League Soccer.

I'll forgive him the dig at MLS. Read the whole piece.