Penalties and the world championship

Forza Italia’s political advisor, Giovanni Toti, speaking about the Mose scandal in Venice, stated: “There should be penalties!”
Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura, during the Brazil-Croatia match in the Brazilian Soccer Championship , literally took his word for it and granted a nonexistent penalty kick in favour of Brazil. Well, there is no use criticizing him! If there must be penalties, we have to start somewhere: maybe, just to make things easier and faster, by punishing the weaker and less protected. Let’s not split hairs ….
On the other hand, a sense of the rigour of punishment is a feature shared by most politicians. Not by chance, the (now former) mayor of Venice, in keeping with his sense of responsibility, after bargaining a sentence of four months of imprisonment, “rigorously” – though temporarily – resumed office: a glowing example of rigorous consistency. You surely cannot vacate such an important chair, which might become occupied by somebody with a weaker sense of rigour.
This is a period when not one part of our state machinery is exempt from investigations and convictions, to the point of becoming boring. The only fun is provided by the candid justifications brought by the people under investigation; Claudio Scajola, for example, under house arrest on charges of having aided former parliament member Amedeo Matacena in absconding from justice, submits the following defence in his counsel’s notes: he did it all out of love for Matacena’s wife. How sweet!
What about penalties? if the poor devils who pay their taxes regularly and comply with the law want to see penalties applied, I am afraid they had better continue watching the soccer matches being played in the Brazil stadiums!.