News item: The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the state’s governing body for high school athletics, issued several sanctions Thursday against the Berlin High School football program following an investigation into recruiting and residency violations.

Berlin, per the CIAC Board of Control, must forfeit its seven victories from this season and has been prohibited from participating in the state playoffs. The program has been placed on probation for one year and the school fined $4,000.

Moreover, the four ineligible players are not allowed to participate in any athletic competition again at Berlin. If they transfer to another school under CIAC auspices, they must sit out the rest of this year and half of next fall to become eligible again.

Reaction to the news item: This is what’s called a good start.

But it’s not enough.

And it’s rooted in the difference between violating rules and completely thumbing your nose at them. Berlin coach John Capodice and his lawyer can sing arias about Capodice’s innocence. To claim ignorance over four players who live in your rival’s town but play football at your school invites Fleetwood Mac to perform the background music at the trial:

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.

The CIAC’s decision to prohibit Berlin from the 2015 state football playoffs is necessary and just. But probation for next season is not enough. Berlin should be out of the postseason for 2016, too.

Reason I: Berlin’s transgressions, as most transgressions do, bear unintended consequences. In this case, they’ve altered the integrity of the playoff races in several divisions. Berlin’s cheating has affected the postseason positions of other schools. Innocent schools. Hence, the tentacles of punishment should extend into next season.

Reason II: Berlin played virtually this entire season competing for the playoffs, in spite of willfully breaking the rules. It won seven games on the field. Forfeiture is fine, except the memories of winning games and keeping playoff hopes alive won’t fade. Essentially, all this cheating has led to what consequences, really? A fine and forfeiture of games Berlin won on the field? It’s not good enough. You cheat for a whole year, you should play for a whole year with no playoff hopes.

I understand this will elicit the “but you’re punishing the kids for the actions of the adults” crowd. Let me say this: How innocent, exactly, are the kids? What, all this recruiting and residency stuff was a news flash to them? They knew. They all knew. Benign neglect is still neglect. And if you think playoff banishment next year will scar them for life, try to remember Kevin Ollie and UConn endured as much a few years ago. All Ollie did was establish a baseline for a program that won the national title the following year.

If nothing else, this affair illustrates a clearer blueprint toward exposing future residency and recruiting violations in state high school sports: less hearsay, more video evidence. In this case, a private investigator, per a story in the Hartford Courant, spent more than a week staking out a house in New Britain, obtaining video evidence of a Berlin football player leaving his home in New Britain and driving six miles to Berlin High School.

Anybody who owns a device with video capability and has some time on his or her hands could become the next Sam Spade. Remember: The CIAC hasn’t the time or wherewithal to pursue every complaint. Somebody else must do the work. And it’s way beyond the familiar tones of recruiting rhetoric. The CIAC needs hard video evidence. New Britain found a means to deliver some.

This should be a cautionary tale to coaches out there — and their kids — who practice the same benign neglect as the Berlins. If you have a kid living where he or she shouldn’t be, you never know when the video evidence will be forthcoming. Now that Berlin has been exposed, how many others will follow?

Meantime, I hope everyone else remains as amused as I am over the luxury of anonymity. This story unearthed all the usual experts from their underground caverns, tossing recruiting innuendo around like horseshoes at the family picnic. They perpetuate the same rumors, subscribe to the same theories, just without a hint of real evidence.

And when it’s time to put their real names to their accusations?

Or provide actual evidence?

Crickets.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

Twitter: @BCgenius