If looking at the role of the referee sheds light on many of football's challenges, then the logical next step is look at those who actually play the game: the players. As explained at the end of Chapter 3, getting integrity right involves a mixture of things. Players should “do the right thing” not simply through coercion but also because these are the right things to be doing anyway. Values matter every bit as much as rules, regulations and punishments. Footballers are imperfect beings; they make mistakes and misjudgements. They can read situations incorrectly and do things that, after some reflection, they might regret. All of that is understandable. The challenge is to get players (and others) to be aware that what they do matters beyond the immediate contest that they are involved in. Indeed, showing personal integrity is about plenty more than individual behaviour; it's about having a guiding set of principles that use traits such as honesty, trustworthiness and fairness as guides to help shape action. It's also about understanding the wider context and maintaining the institutional integrity of football itself.

This is even more so given that football is a fast-paced sport where multiple potentially key decisions are made at speed. In a tight game one slip, one mistake, one ill-fated decision can turn a game on its head. There are, in other words, many potentially key moments that players have to negotiate. In doing so they have to rely as much on instinct as calculation. It's for that very reason that morals, values and principles matter so much.

Paolo Di Canio: a riddle wrapped in a mystery disguised as an enigma

Paolo Di Canio is not the first player that would spring to mind when discussing issues of doing the right thing and acting appropriately. For starters, Di Canio, the talismanic Italian centre-forward, was a man with unapologetically neo-fascist political leanings. As a Lazio player it was he who used an outstretched right-arm salute to celebrate a 3-1 victory over city rivals Roma in 2005. It was he who had the letters DVX, a Latin derivation of “Il Duce”, the nickname given to former Italian leader Benito Mussolini, tattooed on his right arm. To that was added a portrait of Mussolini on Di Canio's back.