World Cup winners Italy have broken the trophy. Already reeling under the impact of a massive match-fixing scandal involving top clubs in their domestic league, Italians learnt that the world's biggest sporting trophy -- which their national team won less than a week back -- was no longer in one piece.
Pictures on the front page of Italian newspaper Il Messaggero showed an extremely worried-looking Italian skipper Fabio Cannavaro staring at the Cup, then holding up what appeared to be a piece of green malachite that had broken off its base.
When the picture was taken, Cannavaro was sitting on the Italian team bus on his way to visit Gianluca Pessotto, the former Juventus player who is in hospital in Turin after falling from a window of the club's offices during the tournament.
The piece may have come off the 14-inch-high trophy on the bus, according to the newspaper which also claimed it was later glued back on. Officials were said to be so alarmed that they considered cancelling a victory parade for the team.
The Italian captain admitted that he slept with the trophy on the night of winning the final, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The FIFA World Cup Trophy was designed by Italian artist Silvio Gazzaniga, who was born in 1921. His design was chosen from 53 entries. The 36.8cm high trophy is made of 18-carat gold and weighs 6.175 kilos.
The trophy is made of solid 18 carat gold and shows two athletes spiralling out from the base to hold the world in their hands. There are two layers of malachite on the base.
The trophy was first presented to the 1974 World Cup winning captain, Franz Beckenbauer of West Germany. It replaced the original Jules Rimet Trophy, which was won outright by Brazil when they became world champions for the third time in 1970.
The new trophy cannot be won outright, according to new FIFA rules. The winners keep it until the next tournament and receive a gold-plated replica.
Only five countries have won the World Cup since the new trophy was introduced and that statistic will not change after Sunday's final. The previous winners of the FIFA World Cup Trophy are West Germany in 1974 and 1990, Argentina in 1978 and 1986, Italy in 1982, Brazil in 1994 and 2002 and France in 1998.
The name of each winning team is engraved, in English, on the base of the Trophy. There are enough spaces to last until the 2038 World Cup.
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