An invasion of South Americans with allegedly fabricated Italian ancestry is rocking the Italian five-a-side soccer world.
The Italian team that came third in October's 'futsal' world championship was composed of 14 Brazilians.
Brazilian media dubbed them the Azzurri Selecao or the Brazzurri.
Of the 30 players in the top two Italian league squads, Luparense and Arzignano, 28 are South Americans - so-called 'oriundi', a Spanish word meaning ''originally from''.
Some 77% of Italy's five-a-side players are oriundi.
Five-a-side regulations lay down that only one foreigner can play for a team, but there's no limit on oriundi who can prove Italian ancestry.
Unfortunately for many, according to Italian prosecutors, rules have been bent and documents forged for claims of non-existent Italian grandparents.
There are currently three probes across Italy: one in Caserta into 17 Argentinians found living in the same house; one in Vicenza into seven Brazilians; and one in Aosta into five Brazilians.
Judicial sources say the players aren't facing charges but the agents and officials involved are.
A Vicenza prosecutor told ANSA Friday he would ask for indictments against three suspects - an Argentinian soccer agent, a Brazilian-Italian documentation agency chief, and a Vicenza police official - ''within a few weeks''.
Vicenza-based Arzignano, which as well as topping the league won the Italian Cup earlier this week, said Friday that none of its players were involved and its ''conscience was clear''.
''All our players have Italian surnames because their after or grandfathers are Italian. We haven't received any judicial notification,'' said club chairman Andrea Ghiotto.
Ghiotto said it was ''suspicious'' that the case had come to a head two days before the division meets to elect a new president.
FIFA UNHAPPY.
FIFA, world soccer's ruling body, rapped Italy for its all-Brazilian side in the recent world cup.
''Italy certainly isn't in an ideal situation since all its players were born in Brazil. This isn't what we want if we are to develop the sport and defend the concept of national teams,'' said Fifa Competition Director Jim Brown.
The sport has also had its doping problems.
One of the oriundi Italy fielded, Eduardo Carlos Morgado, tested positive for nandrolone after the third-place play-off against Russia and received a two-year ban.
A few weeks later, 2003 World Player of the Year Adriano Foglia tested positive for cocaine.
Italy's biggest-selling newspaper, Corriere della Sera, had a two-page feature on the case Friday, saying ''despite 80,000 professional players and a million who play the game, five-a-side is falling apart, what with oriundi, criminal cases and banned substances''.
Brazil and Argentina provide the bulk of the five-a-side oriundi but Paraguayan players are also involved, Corriere reported.
ORIUNDI MADE HISTORY IN SERIE A.
Some of Serie A's greatest players have been oriundi, including Brazilians Jose' Altafini and Angelo Sormani and Argentina's Omar Sivori and Juan Alberto Schiaffino.
The term dates from the 1950s when Sivori, Humberto Maschio and Antonio Angelillo, the three stars of the Argentina team that won the 1957 Copa America, were signed by Italian clubs and given citizenship.
In 1966, all foreigners were banned from the Italian League, blamed for the continued underperformance of the national side which culminated in the humiliating defeat by North Korea at that year's World Cup.
The ban was eased when one foreigner per Serie A team was allowed from 1980, and was then scrapped under European Union free movement of labour rules.
Currently, the most famous Italian oriundo is Juventus' Argentinian footballer Mauro Camoranesi, who was granted Italian citizenship via his grandfather from Marche.
Camoranesi won the 2006 FIFA World Cup with the Azzurri and is still a mainstay of Marcello Lippi's side bidding to retain the title in South Africa in 2010.
Italy could also enjoy the services of Juve striker Amauri who is about to get an Italian passport, through naturalisation, and will have to choose between the country of his birth and the nation he has played in since 2000.
