Updated news about the Scandal [DO NOT POST COMMENTS] (15 Viewers)

[ReBeL]

Giannichedda was going to Inter, but with the pressure of Moggi and GEA, he joined Juve according to those telephone conversations:

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"Giannichedda… Niente Inter"


Giuliano Giannichedda era ad un passo dall'Inter… ma alla fine la Gea sotto le pressioni di Luciano Moggi lo convinse a passare alla Juve e a rinunciare ad alcune centinaia di migliaia di euro.

E' quanto emerge da una serie di intercettazioni telefoniche che vedono come protagonisti l'ex direttore generale del club bianconero, suo figlio Alessandro e l'amministratore delegato della Gea Franco Zavaglia.

Ecco gli stralci:
Moggi informa Capello
Moggi: «Ho detto a Zavaglia che Giannichedda non deve firmare con la Lazio, cosى lo prendiamo a parametro zero l'anno prossimo».
Capello: «Bene...».
M: «Comunque ne parlerٍ anche con Papadopulo. E Cesar non va all'Inter, almeno fino a giugno resta a Roma».
Moggi senior e Moggi junior
Luciano Moggi: «Convinci Giannichedda che deve venire a Torino».
Alessandro Moggi: «Guarda, si è fatta avanti l'Inter. Mancini ha fatto offrire un milione e mezzo di euro».
L: «Il giocatore assolutamente non è da perdere. Se ci so' problemi dimmelo che lo chiamo direttamente io».
A: «No, ma perderlo no, è impossibile. Intanto ho chiuso la trattativa col Milan per la cessione di Jankuloski dall'Udinese. Ma non si deve sapere fino a luglio».
Il giorno dopo…
A: «Guarda che ha detto che firma per la Juve solo se gli diamo un milione e due perché l'Inter gli dà uno e mezzo».
L: «Dammi il suo numero. Mo' lo chiamo io».
Moggi jr. fa pressing su Zavaglia
Moggi: «Franco, convincilo tu, digli di firmare, fagli capire che all'Inter va a fa brutte figure. A noi se l'operazione va con la Juve è meglio perché lui ce perde ma noi prendiamo duecentomila euro in più».
Operazione conclusa
Alessandro Moggi: «Papà, lui è qui vicino a me, ora firma, domani ti faccio avere il contratto».
Lotito non sa nulla
Lotito: «A Zava', ma quando chiudiamo la pratica Giannichedda?».
Zavaglia: «Presidente, quando vuoi, basta solo che ci incontriamo».
L: «Eh, io aspetto... mi dici che non ci sono problemi».
Z: «Nessun problema, sono stato un po' impegnato. Ora chiudiamo, tranquillo...».
Capello vuole vederci chiaro
Capello: «Luciano, leggo che su Giannichedda ci stanno altre squadre...».
Luciano moggi: «Fabio, vai tranquillo. Ha già firmato per noi».

http://www.sportal.it/sportal/immagini/news/news659352.html

 

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[ReBeL]

Baldini confirms Juve talks


Former Roma transfer guru Franco Baldini has confirmed negotiations to replace Luciano Moggi at Juventus are in full swing.

“I have had a meeting in Turin and this is well know, but for now there is nothing more I can say,” he told journalists this afternoon.

Baldini has been hotly tipped for the director general position at the Stadio Delle Alpi, where he would reunite with ex-Roma boss Fabio Capello.

Juve are undergoing a revolution in the wake of the investigation into alleged match-fixing and collusion with referees, sparked by intercepted telephone conversations between Moggi and high-ranking officials.

“The foundations have been laid and negotiations are on-going, but I’m not allowed to divulge any more information right now,” added Baldini.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but there is still the time to reflect and think about the situation.”

The club has been handed over to temporary CEO Carlo Sant’Albano until a new Board of Directors can be appointed in late June.

 

[jussiut]

Leader of Italy's Most Revered Soccer Club Takes a Spill
New York Times

By PETER KIEFER and IAN FISHER
Published: May 21, 2006

ROME, May 20 — Until recently, Luciano Moggi, the former leader of Italy's exalted Juventus soccer club, held a uniquely exalted post: definitely higher than the Italian ministers always pestering him for favors, and apparently only a little below the pope.

"There is no need to pray," Mr. Moggi told a young producer for a television program who wanted something soccer-related and appealed both to God and Mr. Moggi. Mr. Moggi, caught in an intercepted phone call, assured him the request would not get lost: he remembered everything.

The implication was that he controlled everything, too. And an ever-expanding investigation into whether soccer games in the Italian league had been fixed, in which pretty much every important figure in the country's national passion is under investigation, shows it may well have been true.

In news coverage painted across pages of newspapers, in nonstop and not-utterly-shocked talk around Italy, Mr. Moggi has emerged as the central figure of the scandal — and of a national story Italians are used to by now.

It is only a coincidence, but some commentators still enjoy noting that Mr. Moggi, a former train conductor from a modest background, became the leader of Italy's most fabled team in 1994, the same year another now-powerful man of modest origins took over the Italian government.

That other man was Silvio Berlusconi, and critics charge each man with creating networks of sports, politics and business that brashly challenged the bounds of ethics and legality — as opposed to their more genteel predecessors, who did the same, only a little less brashly.

"It is something absolutely typical of Italy," said Marco Travaglio, an investigative reporter who wrote a book about Mr. Moggi titled "Lucky Luciano" — a clear and cutting allusion to the American Mafia figure — with three other sports reporters who remained anonymous out of fear of retribution.

"It was in Italy that we saw the phenomenon of Berlusconi that in the field of finance and business was very similar to that of Moggi in sports: a man who came from nothing, who elbows his way up in a system that is all based on friends and an exchange of favors with politicians with money," Mr. Travaglio said.

"The systems are analogous," he added. "They are both symbols of a country where the law may be written, but those who don't have respect can succeed in getting away with it."

Still, Mr. Berlusconi was rejected by voters last month. And Mr. Moggi seems to be in serious trouble.

The central allegation is that he indirectly fixed league games by controlling refereeing assignments to the benefit of Juventus and a handful of other teams. He is suspected of having covered it up through a network of coaches, team owners, managers, league officials and journalists.

Nine teams and 42 others are involved in the investigation, which is being called the "clean feet" inquiry, a rhetorical play on the "clean hands" political investigations into public corruption in the early 90's.

The investigations grow daily and show, above all, just how good it was to rule Juventus.

On any given day, according to transcripts of intercepted phone calls, Mr. Moggi was fielding calls from top politicians, law enforcement officials or judges who wanted to consult on political appointments, dish on continuing investigations or flat-out ask him for personal favors.

"I have two boys, 6 and 7 years old, that play soccer and play in all the tournaments even today," said Domenico Siniscalco, the nation's former finance minister, according to one published transcript. "This summer I was hoping to send them to one of the Juventus weeks," for a youth soccer camp. "You have to tell me how and when."

It's already done, said Mr. Moggi, who in turn had been looking for the transfer of a friend who worked with Italy's financial law enforcement agency. Mr. Siniscalco told Mr. Moggi to have his friend drop by the office, according to the transcript.

In another published transcript, the nation's former interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, asked Mr. Moggi to intervene on behalf of his home soccer team, Sassari, which was in danger of dropping out of Italy's lowest professional league.

The referee, Mr. Pisanu is quoted as saying, "had already caused problems." He continued, "They sent him again to Sassari while they should have sent him somewhere else."

Mr. Moggi said he would "have a look."

Mr. Pisanu and Mr. Siniscalco denied any wrongdoing and walked away red-faced but relatively unscathed. Aldo Biscardi, the red-headed 75-year-old host of a popular soccer show on television, was not so lucky.

After 26 years, Mr. Biscardi resigned on Tuesday after it was disclosed that Mr. Moggi had exerted an unusual amount of control over Mr. Biscardi's program. The transcripts show that Mr. Moggi influenced the lineup of guests, the games that were analyzed, the tone of the criticism, even the results of the viewer call-in polls.

This week, the offices of Juventus, in Turin, were searched by Italy's financial police, as were the houses of Mr. Moggi; his son Alessandro; a former Juventus director, Antonio Giraudo; and two players on the team. On Friday, the coach of the Italian national team and a former Juventus coach, Marcello Lippi, went in front of investigators for questioning. (Mr. Lippi is not being investigated.) The inquiry now appears to be turning to the money trail.

The allegations are so serious, with no immediate end in sight, that even the church feels its faith tested.

"When you are dealing with these interests this big, it is not surprising that there are scandals," Cardinal Camillo Ruini, a close aide to Pope Benedict XVI on the Italian church and politics, said Friday at a news conference. "From a good Italian and from an old fan, I am sad and disappointed. I would have always liked that sporting events were genuine."

______________________________________________

Juve's image is being tarnished all over the globe.

 

[ReBeL]

Italian Soccer Stocks Takes a Beating



MILAN, Italy - Juventus, once Italy's blue chip soccer club, has been taking a beating on the stock exchange in the wake of accusations that officials influenced referee appointments and carried out other illicit behavior in a wide-ranging soccer scandal.

Milan stock exchange authorities have regularly suspended Juventus stock from trading in recent days to stop a free fall that has seen the value tumble 30 percent in the last week — bad news for the Agnelli family of Fiat SpA, which owns a controlling stake, as well as thousands of small shareholders trying to cut their losses.

But the potential economic fallout of Italy's soccer scandal is as wide-ranging as the soccer economy itself — extending to costly television rights, lucrative sponsorship deals and even tourism and development projects.

As a result of the scandal, Turin-based Juventus, Italy's most successful and popular club, faces the threat of being knocked out of Serie A for the first time in its 99-year history :confused2 :irritated . If that happens, millions of euros (dollars) in sponsorship and TV rights contracts are jeopardized.

As the allegations widen to include other Serie A clubs, Lazio, AC Milan and Fiorentina, observers say the economic impact may be incalculable if soccer fans lose faith in the sport most closely tied to Italy's national identity.

"If the scandal provokes disillusionment on the part of the audience, then there is no way to compute the damage," said Stefano Salvatori, a commerce professor at Bocconi University.

Ferruccio De Bortoli, the director of the respected financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore, urged authorities to suspend trading of soccer club stocks this week, saying the scandal illustrates the incompatibility between financial markets and sports.

Besides Juventus, AS Roma and SS Lazio also are traded in Milan.

"The international impact is devastating, and (previous) financial scandals become small by comparison," De Bortoli was quoted as telling la Gazzetta dello Sport this week. "Because here, more than anything, popular trust has been violated."

Salvatori said soccer club stocks, even in the best of times, tend to erode in value because of the high cost of signing star players.

While many clubs sell shares in Britain, just one club in Germany, Borussia-Dortmund, is traded in Frankfurt and France has resisted pressure from the European Union to allow its premier clubs to launch IPOs.

Illustrating the weak market link, Salvatori said buyers tend to be fans who buy shares as another show of support, and "who are very angry now."

Responding to the volatility of the stocks, Milan market officials tightened from 10 percent to 5 percent the band at which they would suspend trading for three days this week. Trading in Juventus was suspended again Friday and the stock closed down 11.6 percent at euro1.18 (about US$1.50). Before the scandals hit, the shares were at euro2.01 (US$2.57)

So far, the Agnelli family's investment company, IFIL, which controls 60 percent of Juventus stock, has said it has no plans to remove the stock from trading.

Minority shareholders are the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company (LAFIC) with 7.5 percent and former managing director Antonio Giraudo, who resigned last week with the entire Juventus board, who has 3.6 percent. Some 28.9 percent is in free float.

While selling shares allows teams to raise capital, soccer clubs' value lie increasingly in TV and merchandising rights.

One of Europe's top teams in terms of revenues, Juventus reported to analysts in March that sponsorship and TV broadcast rights deals comprised 69 percent of its revenues of euro134 million (US$171 million) in the first half of the 2005-06 season.

Cheuvreux rated the stock positively in a report last month, before the scandals broke, noting that Juventus had secured 70 percent of its revenue estimates for the next four years through a TV rights contract with Mediaset, controlled by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's holding company, and long-term agreements with Nike Inc. as technical sponsor and Tamoil as league sponsor.

Possible sanctions, however, could endanger that revenue. Contracts with Mediaset and Sky, which has satellite broadcast rights, have clauses that allow the terms to be renegotiated if Juventus is relegated to a lower division, and Nike has the right to terminate the deal if Juventus does not compete in Serie A for two straight seasons — a possibility given that it might be put back to Serie C, Italy's third division.

Sky is contracted to pay euro94.5 million (US$120 million) for the 2006-2007 season satellite broadcast rights, while Mediaset is in the middle of a three-year euro12 million (US$15 million) deal for terrestrial digital, cable and ADSL rights and has new agreements worth euro108 million (US$138 million) in 2007-2008 and euro110 million (US$140 million) in 2008-2009, according to Juventus.

The 12-year partnership with Nike, starting from 2003, is for a guaranteed minimum of euro187 million (US$239 million) while Tamoil has a euro102 million (US$130 million) official sponsorship deal through June 2010.

The Italian federation must act by the end of July, the deadline for communicating to the Champions League which teams will be taking part.

By COLLEEN BARRY
Associated Press

 

[ReBeL]

Football giant facing financial disaster



According to Mattia Grassani, one of Italy's leading sports lawyers, Juventus faces expulsion from Serie A to Serie C. Speaking to Italian newspaper Il Giornale, he said: "In the event of repeated unlawful actions ... there are various financial penalties and demotion to Serie C. Juventus really does face this."

The lawyer also argued that investors, media companies, the players and fans could all have claims for compensation against Juventus, if its directors are found to have failed in their duty.

The media companies and the players would be able to declare their contracts null and void, meaning Juventus would lose its major assets and source of income without compensation.

The loss of its star players would be highly damaging to any chance of recovery on the field. It is understood that David Trezeguet, Patrick Vieira and Gigi Buffon have already indicated their unwillingness to play in Serie B.

Juventus is the world's fourth-richest club and one of Italy's most popular teams. Outraged fans are reported to be considering "striking" by not renewing their season tickets.

By David Brierley
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article549412.ece

 

[ReBeL]

Pressure growing on Lippi to quit




MILAN, Italy (Reuters) -- Calls for Italy coach Marcello Lippi to resign over a football scandal clouded the national team's World Cup preparations on Sunday.

Magistrates summoned Lippi on Friday as a witness in the match-fixing scandal and he is expected to be questioned more extensively next week.

Italian newspapers reported pressure was rising on Lippi to step down, a move that would seriously disrupt Italy's chances at the finals in Germany starting on June 9.

Italy face Ghana, the U.S. and the Czech Republic in their World Cup group games.

Lippi denied last week that former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, who is at the center of match-fixing allegations, forced him to select certain players for the national side for his personal profit from transfer deals.

Lippi's son Davide is also an agent at the sports transfer agency being probed by authorities.

"A movement from the top, which may be political, has decided to push for Lippi to end up in the list of those who, for various reasons, have decided to quit," leading daily La Repubblica wrote on Sunday.

Influential sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport also suggested it might be time for Lippi to step aside.

"Lippi at the World Cup is a risk," it said in a front page editorial.

The paper also published an Ipsos poll showing 30 percent of those interviewed said it would take at least three years for Italian football to recover from the accusations of false accounting, match-fixing and illegal gambling rocking the sport.

Most of those interviewed also called for Juventus and other Serie A clubs accused in the scandal to be stripped of any championship titles won during the period under investigation.

Italy's football association will appoint new internal investigators in the next few days, after chief investigator Italo Pappa quit on Saturday due to the widening probe.

Magistrate Luca Palamara said it would be for football officials, not the law, to decide on Lippi's future.

"Lippi at the World Cup? It's not the problem of the magistrates who are in charge of the investigations into the soccer scandal," Palamara was quoted as saying.

Palamara is one of the investigators looking into transfer deals at GEA World, a sports agency managing nearly 200 players whose dealings lie at the center of the investigations.

Lippi's son Davide is an agent at GEA. Lippi, when he became Italy coach two years ago, said there was no conflict of interest.

Reuters

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"Lippi at risk," wrote the Gazzetta dello Sport Sunday.

"There's no real proof that he isn't involved in this disaster.

"He's at risk because this is not just an Italian problem. It has become a plaything for the international press and all eyes are on Italians, the sons of scandal."

The front page editorial in 'Il Manifesto' was in full agreement.

"Lippi has got to go," it headlined. "It's the least we can do to restore credibility to our football team.

"If this isn't done, we should all support our first round opponents at the World Cup - Ghana, the United States and the Czech Republic."

AFP

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Stupid decision if implemented

 

[ReBeL]

In Italy, dung at your doorstep




The soccer World Cup, now less than three weeks from kick- off, is the biggest theater of global sports entertainment any of us will witness this year. It will attract billions of fans, from the very young to the ancient; it will cross cultural divides of competing countries including Iran and the United States; and we will repeatedly be reminded that this is "The Beautiful Game."

Beauty, perhaps. But it is also guaranteed to engage heavy betting, some of it through syndicates operating from Asia. Where there is betting, there are sometimes sinister attempts to fix the referee, the players, the administrators - as investigations in Belgium, China, Vietnam, Germany, the Netherlands and Romania demonstrate.

However, the scale of the latest alleged corruption in Italy dwarfs them all.

"Che bello scandalo" - what a beautiful scandal - is one way of looking at it.

Another is to assume the worst rumors are true, as Sepp Blatter, the Swiss president of the international governing body FIFA, did over the weekend.

"It's terrible what's happening, especially for the game's image," Blatter told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "I could understand it if it had happened in Africa, but not in Italy."

His shock is surprising, his rhetoric shocking. Blatter's support base is in no small measure due to the 52 African nations who vote in FIFA's elections - and it is Blatter who promised them that FIFA would grant the World Cup to South Africa in 2010.

To outsiders, even to those employed in the industry in Italy, the daily deluge of leaks is like having dung placed on your doorstep.

Who will clean it up, and when?

In a country where soccer is intrinsic to life and where the deposed Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi not only owned AC Milan but presided over the laws governing soccer business, swift resolution seems far off.

Among other resignations last week was that of Aldo Biscardi, host of "Il Processo" - The Trial - a television program that for 26 years set itself up as judge and jury on the game. Biscardi too was "exposed" by the infamous telephone tapping. He allegedly manipulated public opinion to favor Moggi's club, Juventus.

Last Friday in Rome, the affair that Romano Prodi, the new prime minister of Italy described as "past crisis point," entered the inner sanctum of the Azzurri, the national team preparing for the World Cup, and also Parliament.

So far, we have touched on a minuscule part of inquiries and resignations affecting many of the most famous people in Italy. The day that one Milan club owner, Massimo Moratti at Inter, agrees with his rival, Berlusconi at AC Milan, that lo scandalo is chilling, shocking and rotten is almost certainly the prelude to the next day's revelations.

Sure enough, AC Milan becomes implicated in investigations. Sure enough, Inter is dragged into the mire because, it was reported Saturday, the club's president, Giacinto Facchetti, allegedly got a tip off a month in advance of a Champions League match against Valencia.

Facchetti apparently was told by Pieluigi Pairetto, the former head of the Italian referees' association and former UEFA referees' commission member, that the arbiter for that crucial match would be Urs Meier of Switzerland.

Revelation after revelation, suspicion upon suspicion, the net widening to the European game, the implicated, and perhaps the innocent dragged through the newspaper mire because someone set this ball rolling.

In what remains of Italian soccer circles, it is darkly said that Berlusconi's political fall is related to this soccer scandal. Certainly Berlusconi's popular vote was synonymous with his victories - and his insistence on style - at Milan.

Berlusconi was quick to insist that Juventus be stripped of the Serie A title won this season and last, and that Milan, the runner up, get those trophies.

And if he has prejudged the evidence, Prodi is swift with the boot as well. In a Senate speech on the war against tax evasion last Friday, Prodi stated: "There is an ethical crisis - the craftiest people must not win. We are thinking about the soccer world."

The Senate debated the need for a commission of inquiry to purify soccer and protect the young. Inevitably, this was denounced as the new government behaving like a police state invading the autonomy of sport.

The damage is more than spiritual. Juventus lost 40 percent of its stock value last week. The more the investigators leak their suspicions, the more heads roll and the more the political leaders wring their hands.

Against this background, Italy enters a World Cup that it could win. It is among the five best-equipped teams in the tournament, and there is precedent for this in 1982, when Italy amnestied Paolo Rossi, a player convicted of "sporting fraud" - match fixing - and he went on score the goals that won that World Cup.

A quarter of a century on, alarm bells ring. Last week it seemed that Italy would speed up the judicial process and decide in weeks to strip Juventus of the title and demote it to Serie B. Now a delay of the new season until October is forecast. By the end of June, UEFA must know which Italian clubs are in its Champions League for next season. If the Italians cannot tell it, then UEFA might have to change its own rules to eliminate all teams from that land until the stench of suspicion is settled.

The wildest speculation, that this could be the end of Italy as a powerful soccer force, may not be the exaggeration it appeared last week.

Rob Hughes
International Herald Tribune

 

[ReBeL]

MOGGI’S OCTOPUS



Giulio Andreotti, who was prime minister of Italy on seven different occasions, summed it up best when he said: “Thinking the worst of others is a sin ... but often it’s also the right thing to do.”

Many Italians had always thought ill of the “bianconeri”, particularly since the arrival – 10 years ago – of general manager “Lucky” Luciano Moggi and chief executive Antonio Giraudo. They believed Juve were favoured by referees, that they used their size to influence smaller clubs and got an unreasonably large slice of the television pie. Yet, most saw it as not much different to the kind of treatment big clubs everywhere enjoy . And using one’s clout to consolidate power within a league was, again, simply skillful diplomacy.

Over the last few weeks, however, it has been claimed that Juve’s dominance was far more sinister. Indeed, it has been alleged that Moggi and Giraudo set up a system of influence and corruption whose tentacles reached everywhere, a structure based on threats, intimidation and patronage whose main purpose was to favour Juventus and their allies.

And now that Moggi’s “octopus” (as it has come to be known) has been exposed, the consequences have rocked the Italian game to its foundation. The top two officials in the Football Association have been forced to resign, as has the Italian FA’s chief investigator. Six referees have been suspended, including Massimo De Santis, who was set to represent Italy at the World Cup. A total of 58 people – club officials, referees, FA officials, policemen and journalists – are being formally investigated. The two titles Juventus won in 2004-05 and 2005-06 could be stripped and they could find themselves relegated to Serie C1, the third division, while other unnamed clubs under investigation could all end up in Serie B. And, if reports in the Italian press are to be believed, it was orchestrated by Moggi, a former railway employee who became the most powerful man in Serie A.

The whole affair came to light almost accidentally, when magistrates in Rome began wire-tapping members of an illegal gambling ring in the summer of 2004. While the inquiry revealed these unlicensed bookmakers were congenital fantasists who claimed to have contacts and inside information they in fact did not possess, it also led them to bug Moggi’s phone for eight months, during which time he made or received around 100,000 calls (an average of 416 per day).

The transcripts of these conversations unveiled the sheer size of Moggi’s operation. There were no bribes or brown envelopes, the evil genius of the system lay in the fact that it was all about influence-peddling. Moggi is alleged to have essentially controlled Franco Carraro, the head of the Italian FA, and the two men charged with assigning referees, Pierluigi Pairetto and Paolo Bergamo. The phone taps show Moggi would freely discuss the referee assignments with them, effectively deciding which referee would get which game.

At the same time, it was made clear that a referee’s career would suffer if they made mistakes which damaged Juventus. They would be suspended or sent to officiate in Serie B. In one case, Moggi went even further, underscoring the degree of impunity he had acquired. Following a controversial 2-1 loss to Reggina, he burst into referee Gianluca Paparesta’s dressing room, berated him, then locked him inside before disappearing with the key. On the other hand, those that did Moggi’s bidding would be rewarded with prestigious matches and even spots in Uefa’s list of officials. And those officials who were deemed “untouchable” – like Pierluigi Collina and Roberto Rosetti – were generally kept away from Juve.

As a result, they generally received a helping hand from officials, both directly and indirectly. Teams who were due to face Juventus the following week were regularly hit with a hail of red and yellow cards, ensuring players who were one booking away from a suspension would miss out against the bianconeri. Indeed, during 2004-05, 25 players were suspended the week they faced Juve.

Moggi’s system was so refined that it was used to damage his enemies too. When Fiorentina returned to Serie A in the 2004-05 season, the Florence club had big plans for change. However, allegations claim Moggi saw the club as a threat and Fiorentina were systematically victimised by referees to the point that, as late as April 2005, they faced the threat of relegation.

The allegations also claim that wire-taps suggest there was a deal with Fiorentina officials, whereby the club would drop its campaign for reform in exchange for “better treatment” from referees. It’s unclear whether Fiorentina accepted, though the record books show that they won eight of a possible 12 points in their last four matches to avoid the drop, at a time when the Viola stopped talking about reform.

But that was just half of Moggi’s empire. He also controlled a huge chunk of the transfer market. In 2001, his son, Alessandro created a football agency called GEA World. Cleverly, his partners were the scions of some of the most powerful men in the Italian game: Chiara Geronzi (daughter of Cesare, the head of Capitalia, a bank which provides credit to a number of clubs), Francesca Tanzi (daughter of Calisto, the Parmalat supremo and former Parma owner), Davide Lippi (son of Marcello, current Italy coach), Gianmarco Calleri (son of Riccardo, former Torino owner), Andrea Cragnotti (son of Sergio, former Lazio owner) and Giuseppe De Mita (a former Lazio executive and son of Ciriaco, a former Italian prime minster).

GEA grew quickly to the point that it controlled some 200 players and 29 managers, soon becoming the transfer market’s true powerbroker. Clubs loyal to Moggi (including Siena, Reggina and Messina) enjoyed preferential treatment. Players were steered towards them and persuaded to sign on favourable terms, they took Juve players on loan whenever they liked and, when necessary, Moggi had a quiet word with the referees’ selectors. In exchange, they threw their support behind him at every opportunity.

Thus, when Juve – who had not won for eight games – faced Siena on the penultimate day of the 2005-06 season, they took on a side where seven of the 14 men who took the pitch were GEA clients, as were the manager and general manager. Unsurprisingly, the bianconeri were 3-0 up inside seven minutes.

The involvement of other Serie A clubs remains to be confirmed but if more clubs from the top tier are found to be involved they, like Juventus and other clubs in Moggi’s orbit, could find themselves relegated.

It is very much Year Zero in Italy, as they try to recover from the scandal, and come to realise that Andreotti was right: until they give you reason to believe otherwise, assume everyone is cheating.

21 May 2006
Gabriele Marcotti
http://www.sundayherald.com/55742

 

[ReBeL]

This is an extremely nice articleumpkin: :

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Cheating Juventus should be stripped of '96 Euro title if new probe confirms guilt



LAST Monday should have been a day of celebration for Italian football as Marcello Lippi named his squad for the World Cup. It normally is, but these are not normal times. Juventus are at the centre of a match-fixing crisis that could yet prove to be the biggest post-war scandal in European football.

Juve are by no means the only club involved. Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio are also implicated. Directors have been fired, players have had their homes searched. More than 40% of Juve's value has been wiped out since the story broke on May 9 and, despite lifting the Serie A championship trophy again this year (right), could end up being demoted to Serie B whenever this is concluded.

Judging by the other great scandal involving Juventus, it may take a while and you'd hope for a more just conclusion also. In 2004, after a lengthy criminal investigation, Riccardo Agricola, then the Juve club doctor, received a 22-month suspended jail sentence for supplying performance-enhancing drugs to the team between the years 1994-1998.

This was a period of huge success for Juve when a Champions League and three Serie A titles were won. The Italian court found that they were not won fairly, that Juve had systematically doped their players in that time.

The football authorities, to their shame, turned a blind eye. FIFA and UEFA left Juve's name on the trophies they won while under the influence of enhancers. How could that be? Where was the spirit of fair play? Juve should have been stripped of their titles the moment Agricola was found guilty.

You wonder what will happen if it is proven that they did fix matches. How severe will the punishment be? Maybe there will be jail for some people. Large fines would be a certainty.

On top of that, the governing body of the game would have a moral duty to take Juve's recent trophies from them and wipe their "victories" from the record if it is accepted that they have cheated once more.

It's a long way off but if that day does come then they should remove the 1996 Champions League and those three Scudettos as well.

They don't have a conscience at Juve. If they did, they'd have handed them back years ago.

By Tom English
http://sport.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=752982006

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey fellow Juve fans,

I know that some of you may hate to see articles like this one, but I think we have to know what others think of our club...That's why I post it...

Forza Juve For Ever...

 

[ZhiXin]

Moggi launches Galliani broadside Monday 22 May, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luciano Moggi, the man at the centre of the alleged match-fixing allegations, says he’s been ambushed by Milan Vice-President Adriano Galliani.

In his first interview since the scandal erupted, Moggi has looked to defend himself while attacking Galliani and also now former FIGC chief Franco Carraro.

“I was ambushed,” he told the Quotidiano Nazionale newspaper. “It all started last September when I went to see [Milan owner Silvio] Berlusconi at Palazzo Grazioli.

“He offered me a job at Milan. I was surprised but also honoured, I told him that I would think about it.

“We were only at the start of the season and at that time I could only think about Juventus,” he continued.

“But we all know what the Milan owner is like, it doesn’t take too much for him to get excited. He obviously told Galliani of the idea.

“Then, two weeks after my meeting with Berlusconi, the FIGC were sent the documents from the Turin magistrates with the taped telephone conversations between myself and other figures in the Italian game.

“Carraro then informed Galliani, who obviously suggested to the ex-Prime Minister to be careful before he made any decisions, saying that it was perhaps best to forget about me because of the enquiry.

“It all began with that unfortunate meeting with Berlusconi.”

Moggi also blasted Carraro, who resigned as President of the Italian Football Federation earlier this month after being criticised for his handling of the present situation.

“He knew everything,” the former Juventus director general continued. “We know where the first pieces of information came from.”

Moggi is at the centre of a probe which threatens to see his former club demoted to Serie B after a number of his telephone calls to the refereeing designators of 2004-05 led to suspicions of sporting fraud.

“I didn’t invent this type of football, the system has always worked like this,” he maintained. “The designators have received calls on a daily basis from clubs for years.

“And they were certainly not friendly calls because everyone always had a reason to complain about something.

“I, like my colleagues, just wanted to make sure that our games were refereed by serious professionals, impartial ones.”

Meanwhile, Galliani is expected to resign as President on the Italian Football League on Wednesday.

source: channel4.com

 

[JCK]

For those who have a hard time understanding, here's a reminder

Don't Comment! only post the articles.

 

[ReBeL]

Here is the full translation for the original interview:


Q:Mr.Moggi,why has all this happened?
A:For all that I know,it was all about a trap! A terrible slab in the back that I could have never foreseen.

Q:At what are you referring?
A:I have an idea.....(short pause)Let me tell you something,I'll tell u something that has happened...last september,I had a meeting at Palazzo Grazioli with Berlusconi where he offered me to go to Milan.I was surprised,but even though I felt enticed,I told him that I was going to reflect on it.It was the beginning of the season and I had to think about Juve first. However we all know how Milan's owner is made,he needs very little to get excited .So he told everything to Galliani with great enthusiasm..

Q:Who most probably didnt react very good at the news...
A:Exactly.BY COINCIDENCE,not more than 2 weeks after my encounter with Berlusconi, the FIGC receives a whole file with my tel. conversations and that of other important figures in the football world. Carraro informs Galliani who in turn informs Berlusconi. Evidently,Galliani suggests Berlusconi to be very attentive before making certain decisions.He told him not to insist too much on me because of this appeal.

Q:heh and then we speak about you and galliani as big friends...
A:Lets talk about something else...

Q:Ok.So why since september we have come till may to know about this?
A:Carraro knew about everything.And we all know that he is not in good terms with Mazzini who is a very good friend of mine. They waited for the right time to get Pairetto involved too because he had promised Collina to become ref. designator.We all know from where the first news came out...

Q:You are talking about plots and treason,but the tel. interception is mainly about you....
A:I am not the person who invented this football,it's the system that works like that, since a very long time. But sorry have you listened to all the calls? We have heard incredible conversations,yet its always because of me,I dont know why.Probably because my name was the first one that came out on the press.And Carraro?Not to speak about his secretary,Ghirelli,a very dangerous person.

Q:I'm sorry,but your phone conversations with Pairetto & Bergamo leave very little chance of misinterpretation.
A:Might be,but maybe some words were only decifered in a certain way but I'm going to tell you something,since years ago,every week the ref. designators receive phone calls by presidents and directors of every club, to start with Meani of Milan and Facchetti of Inter.For sure,these phone calls are not friendly calls,because everyone would have something to complain about.

Q:Ok,the problem is that you are being accused of applying pressure.....
A:Its not true.I,like many others only wanted that on the pitch there would be only neutral referees and not an enemy of Juventus.

Q:What made you feel so fearsome?After all,the others should have feared Juventus not the opposite...
A:But in fact,the situation was the contrary.After all,it was not me who invented this world who lives on deadly interests.The true power lies in those who manouevre the TV rights.Let the magistrates try to control their cell phones.i am sure many interesting facts would come alight.

Q:In the files,there is also some embarassing phone calls between you and some judges(Pinerolo,Marabotto),your friends....
A:Oh come on thats not true,I didnt know anything.I thought I was only talking to a Juve supporter and noone else .I was only trying to be friendly with him and asked him to come see the matches,like I normally do with many others.I cant even remember all the people who used to call me on saturdays to have a free ticket.....

Q:Ok,and how do you feel now?
A:How do u see me? they have killed me.It would be better to cut the sentence now than being ***ked like this. Damned be the day I had the encounter with Berlusconi.........

 

[ReBeL]

Where are THE INVESTIGATIONS going on??



There are four criminal investigations going on which are linked to the scandal in Italian football. They are in:

NAPLES - This started after the telephone conversations were leaked to the press. The central figure is Luciano Moggi, but magistrates are questioning 41 people after identifying 19 matches which they believe to be suspicious.

ROME - Concerning GEA, the largest company of football agents in Italy with over 220 professional footballers and coaches on their books. It is run by Moggi's son Alessandro.

TURIN - Magistrates are looking into the transfer dealings of Juventus. Moggi and another former Juventus director, Antonio Giraudo, are suspected of falsifying accounts and tax evasion.

PARMA - Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and three former players, Antonio Chimenti, Mark Iuliano and Enzo Maresca, are under investigation for alleged illegal gambling on Serie A matches.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4993482.stm

 

[ReBeL]

Marchionne Decries Fiat Share Price Drop



MILAN, Italy (AP) -- Fiat SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne called a slide in the company's share price Monday "irrational," and denied that it was related to the soccer scandal engulfing Juventus -- which like Fiat is controlled by the Agnelli family.

"It's an absolutely irrational reaction. From an industrial and financial viewpoint, Fiat is doing well," Marchionne told reporters on the sidelines of a presentation of a new model of Fiat's light truck, the Ducato. "We confirm everything we've said up to now, nothing has changed. The first half is in line with our targets."

Shares closed down 5.8 percent at euro9.34 (US$11.94) on the Milan stock exchange Monday afternoon. Milan's stock market index Mibtel was down 3.7 percent.

Marchionne blamed unstable financial markets, and said the slide had nothing to do with Juventus.

"The financial-industrial impact between us and Juventus is exactly zero. Fiat has nothing to do with it," Marchionne said.

Analysts suggested the share was down on profit taking and negative market sentiment, but said some Italian investors may sell Fiat shares because of the soccer scandal that involves Juventus.

Fiat's stock has performed well in recent months amid progress in a long-running turnaround plan.

In a separate statement, Fiat said that Marchionne had purchased a total of 20,000 Fiat shares at euro9.38 (US$11.99) each on Monday.

Earlier this month, Fiat President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo bought 88,000 ordinary shares at euro11.27 (US$14.21) after first-quarter earnings were announced.

Associated press

 

[ZAF3000]

Stagliano (Figc): "Juve compromessa, per il Milan al momento non c'è nulla"
22 05 2006
"Secondo il viceprocuratore dimissionario della Federcalcio Stagliano, il Milan uscirebbe fin qui sostanzialmente pulito dalla vicenda. Parlando anche da esperto di diritto, Stagliano afferma infatti che se "la Juve appare compromessa, per quanto riguarda i rossoneri al momento non c'è niente".

======

It basically says:
That till now Juve are innocents, unless new evidences are brought into the trial. Milan innocence has not been reached/annouced.

http://www.sports.it/it/cmc/calcio/200621/cmc_96257.html

 

[ReBeL]

Today's Most Disgusting Article :

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A conspiracy uncovered



For years, Italian soccer fans have watched skeptically as Juventus collected scudetto after scudetto, winning nearly twice as many Serie A championships than its closest rival, AC Milan. But spectator cynicism grew with each last-minute penalty gifted to the team from Turin whenever a goal was needed to avert an unexpected defeat – I myself watched in disbelief when Juve, maintaining a narrow one-game advantage over the surging rossoneri with two games left in the season, scored three goals in the first eight minutes against a Siena team that had only given up 24 in 17 previous games.

The fact that eight of Siena's players, plus their assistant manager and another assistant coach, were all on loan from Juve was merely a coincidence, fans were assured by the Italian sports media, which often complains about the public's tendency to see conspiracies everywhere.

But, as it turns out, even the most paranoid fan's suspicions proved to be far too conservative compared to what was really going on behind the scenes. Over the last two weeks, Italian front-page headlines more commonly associated with wars have been announcing astounding revelations in what may prove to be one of the biggest sporting scandals in history.

Magistrates in four cities are investigating further shenanigans even as transcripts of Moggi's cell-phone conversations are being published daily in the newspapers. Here's an excerpt from one of his discussions with Paolo Bergamo, the man responsible for referee assignments in Serie A:

Moggi: Bertini, Paparesta, Trefoloni, Ragalbuto, I had put in Tombolini, but before he screwed up with Lazio (a Roman team), I don't know about him here, he messed up, he gave a penalty ...

Bergamo: ... uh ...

Moggi: So those were the referees I put the heat on!

Bergamo: Rodomonti in the place of Tombolini, OK?

Moggi: Or Rodomonti in Tombolini's place, that's all right.

Bergamo: However it's done, it's the same, you see ... And honestly, I wanted to hold Tombolini out for a turn because he messed up. If we don't do it this way, wouldn't you punish him?

Moggi: Yes ... yes ...

The repercussions have already been impressive. Juve's entire board has resigned, its publicly traded shares are down 50 percent and the club that Fortune Magazine rated No. 6 in the world is now worth $350 million less than it was two weeks ago.

So, why is any of this of interest to Americans, who care little about Italy and even less about Serie A soccer? I believe there is a lesson to be learned here, in the way the scandal offers a momentary glimpse behind the veil of the world according to the mainstream media – a glimpse into the way in which the real power and money games are played around the world.

Conspiracy theorists are accustomed to being scoffed at, even as their paranoid predictions prove to be more reliable than the sober analyses of mainstream experts. To be sure, not all of them can be true – I'm particularly skeptical of those involving UFOs and aliens myself. But before you scoff at the next wild assertion you encounter, remember that only two weeks ago, all the experts were insisting that the game of calcio was clean, too.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50312

 

[ReBeL]

Coach Lippi told Italy job is safe



FLORENCE, Italy (Reuters) -- Italy coach Marcello Lippi, who has faced calls to quit before the World Cup finals, has been given a vote of confidence by the current head of the Italian Football Federation.

"I have total and full confidence in Lippi," federation emergency administrator Guido Rossi told reporters at Italy's pre-Germany training camp.

Magistrates summoned Lippi on Friday as a witness in an investigation into allegations surrounding his former club Juventus. He is expected to be questioned more extensively next week.

Lippi has denied that former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, who is at the centre of match-fixing allegations, forced him to select certain players for the national side.

Lippi's son Davide is also an agent at the GEA players and coaches management agency being probed by authorities.

Some politicians and newspapers called for Lippi to resign before the World Cup which starts on June 9 as a step towards improving the image of Italian football.

But Rossi, who was appointed following the resignation of Federation president Franco Carraro, said that was out of the question.

"I have never had any doubt about his position -- it would have been a total folly to put the blame on Lippi and avoid the people really responsible," said Rossi.

Reuters

 

[Geof]

sport.it:

Avvocato Moggi: smentita l'intervista a ''Il Giorno''
22 05 2006
"Non entro nel merito dell'intervista, dico solo che queste dichiarazioni Luciano Moggi non le ha rilasciate". Così l'avvocato di Luciano Moggi, Fulvio Gianaria, ha smentito telefonicamente al Tg1 l'intervista pubblicata oggi da Qn, in cui Moggi si sfoga lanciando pesanti accuse al presidente della Lega Calcio Adriano Galliani.

---------------------------

Babelfish translation:

Moggi's Lawyer: refutation the interview to ' ' Giorno' '
22 05 2006
"Not within in the merit of the interview, I only say that these declarations Luciano Moggi have not rilasciate to them". Therefore the lawyer of Luciano Moggi, Fulvio Gianaria, has refuted by telephone to the Tg1 the interview published today from Qn, in which Moggi releases feelings launch heavy accusations the president of the Lega Calcio Adrian Galliani.

 

[ReBeL]

'Worst scandal to hit game'



Eighteen days from the World Cup kick-off, Blatter blew the whistle on Italian judicial investigations into a criminal match-fixing network.

Bribery, blackmail, extortion, violence, kidnapping, tax evasion, illegal gambling and even money laundering through the Vatican Bank are among the tactics allegedly used to rig the results of matches in the Serie A.

Star players, referees, linesmen, club managers, government ministers, judges, tax inspectors, police officers and a TV sports show host have been caught up in the inquiry led by magistrates in five cities.

"This is madness," Blatter told Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper yesterday. "How is it possible that Italian soccer has stooped so low? This is the greatest scandal in the history of soccer.

"I'm deeply concerned, because if a scandal of this type had happened in Madagascar it would have been serious but limited. That this has happened in Italy, where soccer is a religion, is terrible."

Germany's Franz Beckenbauer, who is in charge of organising the 2006 World Cup, condemned the scandal as "the worst thing I have seen in world soccer".

"Italy will pay on the field at the World Cup," Beckenbauer said on Italian TV station RAI.

"Until a short time ago, I had considered Italy a favourite for the title but now I'm certain the chaos will damage the team. Psychologically, their heads will be somewhere else."

Magistrates are examining 320 people and 72 matches from the 2004-2005 season in their investigation, code-named "Off Side".

Italy's media has dubbed it the "clean feet" campaign, in a reference to the "clean hands" anti-corruption drive that toppled Italy's ruling political class a decade ago.

The spider in the web, prosecutors allege, is Luciano Moggi, who quit this month as general manager of champion Turin-based team Juventus.

Moggi denies allegations he rigged matches by organising corrupt referees and linesmen to adjudicate in his team's favour and sideline rivals' players.

Investigators tapped Moggi's mobile phone for eight months, to produce a 1011-page dossier of corruption claims.

He faces a kidnapping charge for allegedly having locked a referee and two linesmen into a locker room after Juventus lost a match in November, 2004.

"I took the keys with me to the airport," Moggi boasted to an anonymous woman in one of his tapped phone calls.

"They'll get out all right - they'll have to knock the door down."

Moggi told another caller that he had "let them have it".

The phone taps have caused great embarrassment for prominent Italian politicians and businessmen.

Moggi fielded two calls from an old friend, former interior minister Giuseppe Pisanu, seeking help for his favourite team, Torres.

"Listen Lucia, I'm calling you because the president of Torres is coming to see you on Saturday," Pisanu said in the first call. "Give him my apostolic blessing and tell him you're seeing him thanks to me."

The minister phoned later to complain about a troublesome referee. "All right," Moggi told him. "I'll look into it now."

Pisanu - now an opposition MP following his government's loss in last month's election - said he had been friends with Moggi, who hailed from the same town as his wife, for 40 years.

"The Torres team came to me as a parliamentarian, as happens with other MPs," he told La Repubblica newspaper.

"They begged me to help them. I was only giving them a hand, they didn't ask me anything illicit. I had no idea of all this mess in soccer."

The scandal also implicates Diego Della Valle, owner of Serie A club Fiorentina as well as a successful global fashion empire that includes the brands Tod's, Hogan and Fay.

The Off Side transcripts insinuate that the Florence team was cajoled and possibly blackmailed into joining the match-fixing ring.

Della Valle's brother, Andrea, phoned the vice-president of the Italian football federation, Innocenzo Mazzini, to complain about a referee's apparently biased rulings against his team in a match Fiorentina lost.

"I'm worried; I don't understand this ruthlessness against us," Della Valle told Mazzini. "These professional killers carry out their work perfectly."

Mazzini replied: "You want to wage war but you don't know how to go about it. Tell me what I can do to help."

A few days later, Mazzini advised the team's chief executive that the best he could do was provide a referee that would rule in the team's favour 50 per cent of the time.

He said the Della Valles should meet the football federation's referee selector in a private room, and admit they had "made a mistake".

"If you don't, you'll get it in the arse," Mazzini said.

The transcripts show Mazzini and Moggi had earlier discussed compiling a dirt file on Diego Della Valle, relating to a property deal in Florence.

Insisting his innocence, Della Valle claims he had no intention of joining the ring and was only trying to entrap corrupt football officials with his calls.

Judicial investigators are focusing on the teams Juventus, Lazio, Fiorentina and AC Milan, which is owned by Italy's richest man, Italian opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi is demanding Juventus be stripped of its Serie A trophy, which he argues should go to runner-up AC Milan.

Although no formal charges have been laid, the scandal has claimed some well-known scalps.

Italian football federation president Franco Carraro and his deputy, Mazzini, have resigned, along with Moggi and the entire Juventus board.

TV celebrity Aldo Biscardi, the 75-year-old presenter of Italy's longest-running football show, quit last week after allegations he slanted his commentary of football games to make it seem that corrupt referees were not favouring Juventus.

A tax inspector is fighting allegations of having leaked official secrets in his role as deputy director of the Italian federation's investigations office.

Prosecutors have accused two policemen of embezzling public funds, for using police cars to chauffeur Moggi and his associates around Rome.

Several players, including Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, are reportedly under investigation for illegal betting.

And Italy's justice ministry is checking on two magistrates who feature in the wire taps, one of whom called Moggi to find Juventus tickets to "sweeten" a visiting judicial inspector.

Stock market regulator Consob is tipped to start a probe this week into the three clubs listed on the Italian stock exchange: Juventus, Lazio and Roma.

Juventus shares have free-fallen 50 per cent since the scandal broke.

La Repubblica reported yesterday that Roman magistrates were investigating whether millions of euros in untaxed income has been stashed in a secret account at the Vatican bank.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said the scandal showed "the depth of the ethical crisis in every aspect of life in Italy".

"Soccer is an important metaphor for the situation of the country," Prodi said.

The leader of Italy's right-wing Northern League party, Umberto Bossi, claimed everyone had known about the corruption for ages.

"These things happen where there's too much money and where bets are at stake," Bossi said.

Retired Juventus player Paolo Rossi said the biggest Italian clubs had "always received a hand" in the past.

"Everyone knew of the situation, but no-one believed it would get to this point," Rossi said.

Juventus has appointed a new chief executive, Carlo Sant'Albano, who represents the team's majority shareholder, the Agnelli family company that owns car makers Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Ferrari.

A prominent Italian businessman and former senator, Guido Rossi, 75, has been put in charge of the Italian federation for six months, as an "emergency commissioner".

"Soccer cannot allow crookedness," Rossi pledged after his appointment last week.

http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,19210931-23215,00.html?from=rss

 

[Juve_Kosova]

channel4.com
http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/may23j.html
Nesta rejects 'tainted' titles Tuesday 23 May, 2006



As the prosecutor who transformed Italy’s political landscape joins the FIGC, Alessandro Nesta insists he wouldn’t want Juve’s ‘tainted’ Scudetti handed to Milan.

The investigation into ‘Calciopoli’ continues to grow and there was an important development today when the Federation appointed Francesco Saverio Borrelli as the new head of the investigating office.


Borrelli has been retired for four years, but was the prosecutor who led the battle against corruption in Italian politics from 1992 to ‘98, a campaign that became known as ‘Mani Pulite’ – clean hands.


With him in charge of the FIGC’s punishments at the end of this investigation into alleged match-fixing, collusion with referees, betting rings and financial irregularities, the football scandal has been jokingly dubbed ‘Piedi Puliti’ – clean feet.


Juventus are at the centre of the investigation and risk anything from docked points to relegation into Serie B and seeing the last two Scudetti stripped from their record.


However, Milan defender Nesta insists he would not want the tainted titles handed to the Rossoneri – who finished second in both contested campaigns.


“I don’t think I’d accept two Scudetto titles if they were revoked from Juventus. I certainly wouldn’t feel like celebrating. It’s best if we just wipe those two seasons off the record books. I hope that justice will be served.”

There are allegations that the now former Juventus director general Luciano Moggi and other figures ‘controlled’ the system whereby referees were assigned to games.


“What disgusted me the most was the entire system in place,” added Nesta. “You could tell something wasn’t quite right, but never imagined it was such a serious problem. You couldn’t say much, though, as you’d get fined or suspended for speaking out. It would be a shame to see Juventus in Serie B, but those who made mistakes must pay and apologise.”


There are fears this inquest could drag on for months and delay the start of next season, but reports today suggest the first verdicts will come from the FIGC in the first week of July. However, there is then likely to be a traipse through the three appeals courts.