The president of the Italian football association Carlo Tavecchio says action must be taken to clean up the Italian game in the wake of allegations that Serie B club Catania bought results last season.
Seven arrests were made on Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged match-fixing with Catania accused of paying opponents to let them win important matches to avoid relegation last term. The Sicilian club's president Antonino Pulvirenti is among those under house arrest as a criminal investigation takes place.
The Italian FA (FIGC) is monitoring the situation closely before deciding what, if any, action it might take against the Serie B club, who dropped out of the top flight just a year ago.
"The problem is this kind of thing is starting to get repetitive," Tavecchio is quoted in La Gazzetta dello Sport to have said from Italy's base at the European Under-21 Championship in the Czech Republic. "It started off in the '80s, continued in the '90s, then we had Calciopoli and now this.
"There are even smaller incidences where the clubs' inclinations [towards fixing matches] can be seen and in times of crisis like these, cunning people are arming themselves to swindle people."
Tavecchio would like to see everybody involved in the Italian game vetted and effective banning orders be issued.
Genoa president Enrico Preziosi, who was suspended for buying a match which would have seen his side promoted to Serie A a decade ago, is still at the helm of the Ligurian club while many figures indicted in the Calciopoli scandal remain actively involved in the game.
"We've got to start off with the kids by giving them a civil education at school," Tavecchio said. "We've got around 200,000 executives in Italy and if one of these has already performed an illicit act, he just gets recycled because there's no punishment.
"We've already started to look into who does not deserve a place in football. We have recently decided that anybody who purchases more than 10 percent of a club must present a criminal record, an anti-mafia certificate and a reference from their bank."
Tavecchio hopes such a system will be in place sooner rather than later amid reports that the former general manager of Parma, who were declared bankrupt last week, is set to return to the game at Serie B club Latina.
"When these [reforms] are in place, [Pietro] Leonardi will automatically be out of the game," Tavecchio said. "I don't think that a person who made Parma go bankrupt can remain involved. It's always the same people involved."