Sport | Football
Judgement day
Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina were relegated to the Italian second division yesterday as punishment for being implicated in the country's match-fixing scandal, but AC Milan were handed a Serie A reprieve.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:00 July 14, 2006
Rome: Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina were relegated to the Italian second division yesterday as punishment for being implicated in the country's match-fixing scandal, but AC Milan were handed a Serie A reprieve.
Juventus were also deducted 30 points from their total for next season and stripped of their last two league titles.
Lazio and Fiorentina were also relegated to Serie B and penalised seven points and 12 points respectively.
AC Milan will stay in Serie A but will lose 15 points and will be kicked out of the Champions League.
Thirteen of the 23-man Italian squad that won Sunday's World Cup final belong to the four teams hit by the penalties.
Former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, one of 25 soccer officials who faced charges of match-fixing and disloyalty, was banned from soccer for five years.
Franco Carraro, the head of the Italian soccer league and a member of the International Olympic Committee, was banned for 4 1/2 years. The sentence for Juve marks the first demotion since their birth in 1897.
The teams will have three days to appeal before a federal court of arbitration and a final decision will be given by July 24. The scandal broke after transcripts of Moggi telling the head of Italy's refereeing commission what officials he wanted appointed to specific games were published in the Italian media. The match-fixing revelations hit the headlines in May.
Despite calls from some for the clubs to be granted an amnesty as a result of Italy's World Cup success, Italian football federation (FIGC) commissioner Guido Rossi dismissed the idea.
If appeals are launched, the FIGC wants them finalised by July 25, the deadline for the names of the clubs to be submitted to Uefa to enter the Champions League and Uefa Cup next season. The verdicts yesterday were handed down by a disciplinary panel made up of five retired judges.
Jury president Cesare Ruperto, 81, earlier this week took a swipe at criticism that the tribunal was a kangaroo court aimed at reaching a snap decision to clarify clubs' league status before the new season.
Juventus, the club in the eye of the storm over allegations referees were picked to favour certain teams in key matches in the 2004/05 season, had said they would accept relegation to the second division in a bid to turn the page on one of Italian football's sorriest chapters. Justice Minister Clemente Mastella said he understood requests for an amnesty in the light of the World Cup success, but Rome's socialist mayor Walter Veltroni said the sport had to be cleaned up.
And the players were not given to leniency either.
"I don't know if I'm going to stay with Juventus," said Azzuri goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon before Sunday's World Cup final.
AC Milan midfielder Gennaro Gattuso said: "Giving an amnesty to the guilty parties in this scandal would be unfair and disappointing to millions of fans awaiting these sentences."
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