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Impact’s Di Vaio faces potential ban

DiVaio (Getty Images)

Marco Di Vaio's first season in MLS could potentially be coming to an abrupt halt.

The Montreal Impact Designated Player faces up to a six-month ban for allegedly failing to report instances of match-fixing carried out by his teammates when he played for Bologna. Di Vaio is currently in Italy for a disciplinary hearing and will miss the club's match against the Philadelphia Union this weekend. Despite the incident happening in Italy last year and completely independent of MLS, Di Vaio would reportedly be suspended by the Italian federation from playing anywhere if found guilty, meaning his season with the Impact would be over.

Di Vaio, who is part of a widespread investigation into the country's latest match-fixing scandal, has claimed to have done no wrong, and Impact coach Jesse Marsch does not seem particularly apprehensive about Di Vaio being disciplined according to comments he made to The Canadian Press.

"I haven't even thought twice about it," Marsch said. "From everything I've heard, it's more like a deposition and less of a trial. I'm not too worried about it."

Di Vaio, 36, just scored his first goal for the Impact last week and has started to come on strong for the expansion side. In eight games with the Impact Di Vaio has a goal and two assists.

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Comments

  1. An accessory to match fixing who only scores once in his brief time with the league, and it just happens to be against you.. said player then immediately gets suspended, never to score on anyone else again. That my friends, would be very Metro.

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  2. I understood it as the Italian federation could request that Montreal upholds the ban. I don’t believe MOntreal or MLS would honor that request based on their investment. However, if the Italian FA goes through FIFA with the request, that is probably a different story. My guess is that it would be challenged though.

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  3. So Divaio can be banned for actions in the italian league but Cahill’s three game red card ban for actions in England isnt subject to any MLS ban? Help Ives???

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  4. I don’t understand the intricacies of world football. So, it’s the Italy FA that would ban Di Vaio from playing in Canada, not FIFA? Who has jurisdiction in this case? So very odd.

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  5. So MTL is about to lose its second Italian striker. Doesn’t bode well for them. For the record, I think it’s great that Serie A and the Italian Feds are finally getting serious about match-fixing. Ban these cheats!

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