press vs milan
http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/jun4h.html
Rossoneri see media conspiracy Sunday 4 June, 2006
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Milan have released a statement accusing the Press of organising a conspiracy to drag them into the Calciopoli scandal with Juventus.
“AC Milan rebel against the organised media’s campaign against us,” read the release on their official website.
“There are entirely arbitrary theories of a 'Milan system’ by misinterpreting snippets of phone conversations, bending the wise words of FIGC Commissioner Guido Rossi and trying to turn a cordial meeting between Adriano Galliani and Rossi into an interrogation.”
Juventus have until now been at the centre of the Calciopoli scandal and risk anything from docked points to demotion into Serie B.
However, the new tactic used by Luciano Moggi’s legal team is to claim that the former Juve director general was only trying to “defend himself against the real power centres of football” – namely Milan.
The Turin-based newspapers have printed several stories supporting this theory over the past few days, including allegations that a linesman was a Rossoneri supporter and today 'Tuttosport’ claimed that the club gifted watches to referees.
“The final aim of this campaign of misinformation is manifest: they intend to transfer the investigation and its verdicts elsewhere, struggling to generate a concert of malicious suggestions to those who must analyse and decide,” continued Milan’s statement.
“Nobody from these newspapers has tried to transcribe, nor even probably to read, the original information provided by the Lazio police in their investigations so far.”
This is the statement printed by magazine 'L’Espresso’ and the Milan website, provided by the Lazio-based Carabinieri police on January 21, 2006, as part of their investigations:
“The evidence acquired thus far reinforce the investigative theory that Luciano Moggi has absolute power over the entire football system. It’s an even more alarming situation due to the exclusivity of this power, next to which there is no counter-balance able to contrast it.”
The temperature in Calciopoli is rising sharply with less than three weeks to go before the investigation is set to conclude and the first verdicts delivered.
Galliani, who is Vice-President of Milan and President of the Lega Calcio, is set to meet with Federation Commissioner Rossi on Monday morning to discuss how they’ll move forward in revamping the football system.
There are also reports this will sanction Galliani’s resignation from the Lega, something which has been repeatedly requested by Vice-President Maurizio Zamparini, who has already handed in his own notice.
Despite the increasingly bitter row between the two clubs, Galliani confirmed yesterday that the Trofeo Berlusconi would again be a Milan-Juventus match in August. The tournament began in 1991 and is set for its 16th edition, almost all of them with these two sides