So, AC Milan have won the European Champions League, giving them a triumphant end to what was looking like a miserable season for the Italian giants.  However, their crowning moment has been overshadowed by the fact that they should not have even been playing in the tournament this season.

Just 12 months ago, when the Italian national side were lifting the world cup in Berlin, the Italian league was mired in a match fixing controversy that saw AC Milan unceremoniously docked points and threatened with expulsion from Serie A – the Italian premier league.

Although the club managed to wriggle out of a ban, they admitted certain of the charges, and were fined a large sum of money.  In effect they and Juventus, another major Italian side had cheated, and although Juventus have been punished, Milan managed to get away with it, and went on to win a lackluster champions league final 2-1 against the English side Liverpool

Of course, the Champion’s league has been anything but of late, the insatiable greed of the top European soccer clubs means that as many as four sides from each country are now competing in the tournament, in Liverpool’s case, the side hasn’t won the league championship since 1990.

Much of the talk in the run up to the match was about revenge for the 2005 final in which AC Milan threw away a 3 goal lead over Liverpool only to lose on penalties in one of the most remarkable come backs (or capitulations depending on your point of view) in football history.  However, as with many important matches these days, the two sides played a waiting game, with neither side looking likely to win for the first half, before the superiority of Milan started to tell, and Inzhagi scored twice to win the match.