So ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Milan, deducted eight league points for their involvement in the Calciopoli scandal, provide Europe's club champions, sitting alongside the Italian nation's triumph at last summer's world cup. (Incidentally, anyone who still disbelieves Filippo Inzaghi that Milan practice free kicks such as the one they scored from should have a look at this.) Former Milan CEO Adriano Galliani, banned for five months for his part in Calciopoli, was prominent amongst......

As the morning of the 2007 Champions League final dawns and Liverpool fans throng the streets of Athens, desperate to acquire a seat for tonight's match from amongst tens of thousands of corporate matchgoers, it seems an appropriate moment for the launch of our new series of articles looking at where football is going, particularly regarding off-the-field issues which seem increasingly to dominate newspaper back pages. Liverpool's opponents tonight, Milan, are especially apposite for......

Next Monday evening you could join Londonist amongst the audience at the JZ Young Lecture Theatre on Gower Street as Cristiano Lucarelli, with 18 goals this season currently second top scorer in Serie A behind only Francesco Totti, joins his agent and biographer Carlo Pallavicino in presenting a seminar entitled "Money, Politics and Violence: Is there any more space for passion in Italian football?". For football fans who are not familiar with Lucarelli the......