Updated news about the Scandal [DO NOT POST COMMENTS] (23 Viewers)

[ReBeL]

Capello: Juve will defend title



Fabio Capello firmly believes Juventus, who are under investigation for alleged corruption, will defend their Serie A title next season.The Turin giants are among the Serie A outfits under investigation for alleged widespread corruption in Italy and a possible punishment, if found guilty of wrongdoing, is relegation.

However, Capello, who has guided Juve to two Scudetti since his arrival to the Delle Alpi in the summer of 2004, remains optimistic.

"I am convinced that Juventus will remain in Serie A," said Capello in an interview to Gazzetta dello Sport. "We are working towards creating a competitive side for Serie A. I think positively and I am confident."

"At most, we may be penalised (points deducted) considering that there have been some executives involved," said Capello.

"I had supper with him (Moggi) a couple of days ago and he was a little disappointed but my friendship and affection towards him remains intact.

"I have worked with him very well for the past two years, and in a moment of difficulty, I will stand by him." :thumbs: :strong: :wink:

It was the football scandal, according to Capello, that halted his move to Internazionale.

"I met (Inter owner Massimo) Moratti personally," he said. "He asked me lots of things but prior to the last game of the season, he called me up and said that nothing would be done and gave the scandal as his excuse.

"This is the fourth or fifth time that I have been contacted by Moratti, I can't keep up with the number of times I have been approached."

Inter have not been the only club keen to acquire the highly-rated Italian tactician.

Real Madrid presidential candidate Ramon Calderon is also eager to lure Capello back to the Bernabeu.

Capello guided Madrid to the Primera Liga title in 1996-97 campaign before joining AC Milan.

"Calderon came to meet me and I listened to what he had to say but I never made any promises," he said.

"I know that Real Madrid are interested in me and in (former Roma sporting director Franco) Baldini, and it's not the first time they have wanted me.

"Back in February, (former Madrid supremo) Florentino Perez contacted me but I have always said that I am the Juventus coach.

"I have said the same thing to other clubs but Real Madrid has not been the only club that wants me."

http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/060529/1/jyf7.html

 

Buy on AliExpress.com

[ReBeL]

Can somebody translate this about the possibility of the relegation to Serie B according to the journalist Carlo Nesti??:eyebrows:

http://www.goal.com/it/articolo.aspx?contenutoId=60713

 

[Zé Tahir]

Sampdoria president Riccardo Garrone has confirmed that coach Walter Novellino will not be moving to Juventus should they be relegated from Serie A.

The Bianconeri are at the centre of a damaging scandal that could see them demoted if they are found guilty of match fixing, and as a result Fabio Capello's future in Turin is not certain.

Although Capello is keen to remain at Stadio Delle Alpi, if the club are forcibly placed in Serie B then reports had indicated that Novellino would have been the man asked to restore the Old Lady to the top flight.

However, Garrone is certain that Novellino, who has also disregarded any notions of an exit, will remain with the Blucerchiati next season.

"Novellino remains with us," Garrone told Radio RAI.

Juventus have also been linked with Samp midfielder Aimo Diana, along with Liverpool, and Garrone has conceded that the winger is attracting substantial interest.

"There are negotiations for him, many clubs are interested," Garrone revealed.


-Sky Sports
http://home.skysports.com/list.asp?hlid=390844&CPID=21&clid=128&lid=8&title=Samp+confirm+coach+stay

 

[ReBeL]

Why was Romanisto warned for that post??

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Scandal threatens to derail Italian World Cup hopes



ROME (AFP) - The scandal threatening to bring Italian football to its knees is now starting to affect the national team's World Cup preparations, according to the Italian press.

With 41 people and most of Italy's big clubs being dragged through the mud, the press said a "morbid atmosphere" has descended over the camp in Coverciano near Florence ahead of the June 9-July 9 football bonanza.

"It is futile to deny it, the scandal is weighing heavily," claimed Corriere della Sera.

The Gazzetta dello Sport heaped pressure on the national squad adding that it was playing the role of "a tow-boat that will pull the country as a whole from the depths of the troubled waters of the Moggi system to the crystal-clear waters of a wholesome spirit."

It has become so bad that Italian sports minister Giovanna Melandri paid the team a morale-boosting visit on Tuesday and her picture, alongside forward stars Francesco Totti and Alessandro Del Piero, is splashed across the nation's newspapers.

"She wanted to bring us some encouragement," said coach Marcelo Lippi ahead of his team's Wednesday night friendly against Switzerland in Geneva.

Lippi himself was one of the people interviewed by prosecutors over the scandal, along with top goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon who was accused of illegal betting but remains with the squad.

"The calcio (Italian league) is in difficulty, help us to turn the page," Melandri told the players on her visit.

Meanwhile, Lazio's president Claudio Lolito has become the latest name to be implicated in the scandal, accused of abusing stock market information about his club.

He is accused, along with his wife's uncle Roberto Mezzaroma, of trying to block the club's capital. Both men deny the charges.

And on Monday Fiorentina's honorary president Diego Della Valle was detained by Naples prosecutors for nine hours, questioned over match-fixing allegations.

AFP

 

[Oggy]

Lawyer Gianaria: “Moggi Protected Juve. The Real Power Is Milan’s”

The lawyer of Luciano Moggi, the former General Director of Juventus, has constructed a scenario that is markedly different from the one being hypothesized by the Naples power of attorney investigating the so-called ’Moggi-gate’ scandal that is convulsing Italian football.

“It’s misleading to think that everyone was at the service of Moggi, Bergamo and Fazi,” said Fulvio Gianaria. “It’s a hypothesis which only serves to create the monster.”

Gianaria, defending Luciano Moggi, added: “An observation on how the Moggi monster was built is imposing itself: the intercepted conversations, with regards to the football system, are essentially of 6-7 persons, the same which more or less the power of attorney of Naples is contesting the conspiracy to commit sports fraud.

“The police who are leading the investigation selected 2,500 telephone calls [from the 100,000 available and maybe even more than what is being said] and from these, 40 have been chosen to define the theory of a football 'cupola’ dominated by Moggi. It’s enough to satisfy the hunger and the emotions of half of the Italian fans who in this manner see their suspicions confirmed. We would like to listen to all of the phone calls and place them into the reality of the real centres of power of football: the television rights and strength of the internal football system corporations.”

The members can be guessed, can you be more clear on the rest?
“The referees, the Federcalcio, the Lega Calcio: thinking that all of these realities moved under the orders of Moggi, Bergamo and Fazi is misleading. It can serve to liquidate in sports a popular question that all is cleared, but in criminal prosecution it’s a different story.”

There seems to be a certain optimism on the outcome of the criminal enquiry
“I’m limiting myself to observe that the accusations will have to be proven in court. If there is nothing else, the theories will collapse. The Turin power of attorney looked for confirmation of the phone calls interceptions to evaluate them and came to the conclusion that there was no sports fraud involved. The hypothesis of the 'cupola’ with Moggi at the top works to build a monster which controls everyone, inside and outside the football world. In the meantime, I would like to listen to the whole 2,500 phone calls, and not have to read published fragments. I say it with all due respect for the work of the police who have selected the conversations which they believed were relevant.”

In the meantime?
“If we cannot inform ourselves, we cannot defend ourselves, and for the time being we are not going to any public minister. Not even to Borelli [the prosecutor chosen by the Italian federation for the sports justice trial] . I repeat: with all due respect for the roles and persons, I have already cleared it to a Turin judge.”

But you already have a defensive line
“Moggi always moved to preserve the strength of Juventus from the centre of important powers. I refer to those who have the possibility of negotiating and purchasing the television rights of the clubs, to those who own the television stations [aka Milan].

Moggi does not have a conflict of interest with GEA?
“It’s so obviously evident that it’s not Moggi who has the conflict of interest [Silvio Berlsconi owns three television stations and also a cable platform] Milan sells and, in a certain sense, buys the television rights; Juve sells them at the best offer, which is understandable. The three great vehicles of money in football are: TV rights, television, and members who recapitalize the club. Thinking that Moggi not only balanced them, but maybe even became the top of the football power is…a joke.”
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http://www.goal.com/en/articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=62085

 

[ReBeL]

Italians lap up phone-tap leaks but unease grows



ROME (Reuters) - Italians already soaking up the early summer sun at the seaside are engrossed in exactly the same beach reading as last year -- newspapers full of details of secretly recorded telephone conversations of famous people.

Last year it was finance, this year it's soccer. Last year the prime "victim" was former central bank chief Antonio Fazio, this year it's Luciano Moggi, the former general manager of Italy's most successful club, Juventus.

Fazio was suspected by prosecutors of insider trading. Moggi is being probed for alleged match fixing. They were both forced to resign by the publication of transcripts of embarrassing but often entertaining taps.

"I locked the referee in the changing room and took the keys to the airport, now they'll have to knock down the door to let him out," Moggi boasted to a friend on the phone after "kidnapping" a referee whom he judged had penalised Juventus.

"Tonino, I'm moved ... I have goosebumps ... I'd like to kiss you on the forehead," disgraced banker Gianpiero Fiorani famously told the supposedly neutral Fazio after he had approved Fiorani's bid to take over a rival bank.

Yet neither Fazio nor Moggi have been charged with any crime and many Italians believe the taps, and particularly their use by the media, are a voyeuristic abuse of defendants' rights.

The transcripts are thought to be leaked either by the prosecutors' office or by clients' lawyers. The publication of transcripts of Moggi's phone calls is illegal because the investigation is still ongoing.

A suspect exposed to public ridicule can be forced from office even if he is innocent and in any case has less chance of subsequently defending himself in the courts, the critics say.

"We are supposed to be a nation of civil guarantees, the phone taps are barbaric," said seven-times prime minister Giulio Andreotti, who was finally acquitted two years ago after more than a decade of Mafia-related trials.

In Italy, a country of around 60 million people, nearly 30 million might have had phone calls recorded in the past decade, according to a study by the Eurispes research institute.

Advocates of wire taps say many high profile arrests, particularly of elusive Mafia fugitives, would not have been possible without the help of phone interceptions.

But centre-left senator Antonio Polito is one of many lawmakers who believe the use of the taps and their publication have gone far beyond what the law allows.

He is planning to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the problem, which he describes as "the biggest risk to (Italian) democracy since Fascism."

MOUNTAIN OR MOLEHILL?

Despite these concerns, Italy's press and television have shown no reservation about presenting Moggi as the lynchpin of a Mafia-type organisation that pulled all the strings in football until it went one phone-call too far.

A gravel-voiced, cigar-chomping wheeler-dealer, he looks perfectly cast for the role.

Yet Antonio Di Pietro, the former prosecutor who spearheaded the Italian Clean Hands corruption probe that brought down an entire political class in the early 1990s, said there was scarce evidence of the "sporting fraud" the investigators suspect.

"From a legal point of view I think we'll see a mountain has been made out of a molehill," Di Pietro said last week.

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has often dismissed data on Italy's weak economy by pointing out that Italians had more mobile phones per head than almost anywhere in the world.

Moggi had six, and in the 2004-5 football season prosecutors reportedly tapped 100,000 of his phone calls, averaging out at an astonishing 416 calls per day.

Justice Minister Clemente Mastella has pledged to investigate reports that a former employee of Italy's main phone operator, Telecom Italia, has created a secret phone-tap database with 100,000 files on Italy's political, economic and sporting elite.

"We cannot live in Italy under the constant fear of being spied on," Mastella said.

Reuters

 

[ReBeL]

DI PIETRO:JUVENTUS DECISION CAN BE MADE IMMEDIATELY



(AGI) - Rome, 30 May - The material gathered against Juventus is already, enough to be able to immediately close the investigation - this was the opinion expressed by the Minister for Transport Antonio Di Pietro whilst at a convention. "With regard to certain aspects, including unfortunately, my team Juventus, the leading government figure said, the material is sufficiently informative to be able to make a decision not within 15 days but now".

AGI

 

[swag]

Why was Romanisto warned for that post??

To break the rules here to help explain them: he was warned before that this thread is for posting articles, not discussing them.

 

[ReBeL]

Prosecutors question Lazio president



NAPLES, Italy - Lazio president Claudio Lotito was questioned for about six hours Wednesday by Naples prosecutors investigating match-fixing and manipulation of referee assignment in Italy's top soccer league.

Lotito is accused of fraud after he reportedly mentioned during a series of intercepted phone conversations favors to his team from referees during the 2004-05 season, according to Italian news agency reports.

He has denied wrongdoing, telling reporters as he left the prosecutors' office that he was "serene" because he was innocent.

"We are ready to demonstrate our transparency," Lotito said. "Lazio is a serious, clean and transparent company based on the principles and values of sports."

Associated Press

 

[ReBeL]

Italy in crisis



The corruption scandal engulfing Italy has left the country with a real sense of shame.

Italy, and the whole of European football, has not seen anything like this before.

I travelled there for three days last week to try and speak to the main players.

After a marathon 22-hour day, we cornered the owner of Palermo, Rino Foschi, in a restaurant at 0100 to gauge his views on what has been going on.

Foschi was having dinner with the directors of Sampdoria and Fiorentina in a restaurant in Milan and I managed to persuade him to have a brief conversation on tape with me.

The scene was like something out of a Godfather film, and I half expected Robert de Niro or Al Pacino to be sitting at the next table.

I also spoke to Giuseppe Gazzoni-Frascara, the former owner of Bologna. The club was relegated in 2005 and Gazzoni-Frascara told me it was as a result of the "Moggi system"umpkin: .

He claimed that Bologna were not prepared to sign up and ended up being relegated instead of Fiorentina.

I set out to speak to Moggi himself, which none of the Italian media has managed to do - and I got very close.

Through various intermediaries he finally agreed for me to fly and meet him in Turin but it got vetoed by his lawyer, which was very frustrating.

However, we did manage to get the country's new sports minister, Giovanna Melandri, who said Italian football fans have suffered a great wound but insisted that things could be sorted out.

And I will be discussing the issue with Fifa president Sepp Blatter, world football's most senior figure, to get his take on the scandal.

My feeling as I left Italy was that the whole of their national game is in danger of imploding. How they are going to clean up a mess which is so interwoven?
Juve's title celebrations may be shortlived

This was highlighted at a press conference where Italian League president and AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani was speaking.

Some Italians believe he should have known what was going on and at the press conference a mob of about 50 fans gathered outside chanting and letting off smoke bombs. It was all pretty scary.

Juventus fans are in a particularly terrible position. They could see their club relegated to Serie B or even go out of business if the Agnelli family decides to stop funding the club.

There is real urgency here because all the national federations have to give Uefa the official lists of clubs who are competing in the Champions League and the Uefa Cup by 27 July.

Italian football will have to come up with some pretty strong answers and satisfy Uefa that they are in the process of cleaning up the game.

They have not got long to do this and there is the possibility that the biggest brands in world football like Juventus and AC Milan may not feature in Europe next season.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/5034522.stm

 

[ReBeL]

Italian soccer scandal worse than expected



ROME -- The newly appointed head of the Italian soccer federation says the state of the national game -- rocked by allegations of fraud, match-fixing and illegal betting -- is worse than he expected.

However, commissioner Guido Rossi said he thought the national team could avoid being dragged into the scandal and stay focused on the World Cup, which starts next week in Germany.

"I didn't expect to find such a serious situation," Rossi told the Italian news agency ANSA on Thursday. "I thought it was much more circumscribed."

Rossi, a former senator and expert in sporting law, was appointed May 16 to clean up Italian soccer after the scandal exploded.

The scandal involves allegations of match-fixing, illegal betting and manipulation of referee assignments. Prosecutors in several Italian cities are conducting separate investigations.

"I think it's possible to reconcile what's happening with the sporting aspect," said Rossi, who met with Italy coach Marcello Lippi last month to express his support of the team. "We work on different levels.'

Associated Press

 

[ReBeL]

Bad news about Buffon's case:

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Buffon’s EUR10,000 Malta bet may be key to magisterial investigation



Italy’s Corriere della Sera has reported that a EUR10,000 bet risks jeopardizing national goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, one of the sportsmen investigate by Torino and Parma magistrates over a gambling and bribery scandal that has rocked Italian football.

Buffon’s bets were conducted through betting websites registered in Malta, apart from other countries.

But it’s the latest EUR10,000 Bet Class bet that could prove to be the key evidence that shows the azzurri’s keeper had gambled even after the entry into force of regulations prohibiting such gambling.

Investigators have acquired records from the current bank accounts of four brokers being investigated for having gambled monies passed on to them by football players: apart from Buffon, these include Antonio Chimenti, Enzo Maresca and Mark Iuliano.

On 16 January 2006, Buffon’s account registered a EUR10,000 withdrawal. That same day, Paolo Pellizzoni, one of the four Parma bookmakers, deposited EUR10,000 into his account. The possible coincidence will need Buffon’s admission before police can proceed. Investigations over the links between Buffon and his friend Alessandro Brignoli, a Parmalat storekeeper who handled the transactions between the keeper and the bookmakers, are still ongoing because police are tracing telephone calls and SMSs between the two.

Buffon has denied every betting on Italian games, especially those of his own team, Juventus.

According to investigations, 15 messages are exchanged by phone between Buffon and Brignoli on 10 August 2004 when Juventus drew 2-2 against Djurgarden in a Champions League match. Buffon also called Brignoli five times on the day of the Palermo match of 25 September 2004 in which Juve drew 1-1.
Bookmaker Paolo Pelizzoni would collect millions from Alessandro Brignoli, a storekeeper with Italian foodstuff giant Parmalat, to bet on the UK online site Eurobet. Buffon allegedly passed on some EUR2 million to Brignoli to place the bets.

When banks referred the multi-million transfers to the authorities, suspecting money laundering, it was first found that the transfers were actually clean.
For months they monitored the transactions, until they referred the case to the Italian police and the Torino magistrature. There they discovered the channels used by football players who played on Eurobet, or the Maltese gaming site Bet Class.

Prosecutors are investigating top clubs, referees and officials for suspected match-fixing in one of the biggest scandals to hit Italy since the 1980s. Resignations have followed, with the Italian football federation president and vice-president Franco Carraro and Innocenzo Mazzini, and the entire Juventus board stepping down.

http://www.businesstimes.com.mt/2006/05/31/t3.html

 

[ReBeL]

Sky falls in on the Azzuri



By tradition, the heavens beneath which Italy's Azzuri train for a World Cup is of a blue as deep as the team's shirts. But this campaign at the retreat in Coverciano on the edge of Florence began under a weeping, leaden sky. "Even God wants to piss on us," shrugged a security official at the gates that may keep out curious fans, but afford no protection against a hurricane of corruption and scandal.

Normally those fans wave flags and line up for autographs, but now clutches of supporters come to jeer and whistle their disapproval. "Champions or Mercenaries?" reads the graffiti outside. Of course there is a tribalism in this: the scandals affect mighty Juventus above all, arch-enemy of the local team, Fiorentina. "But usually, at this time, we are all Italians," observed Mauro, the security man.

The squad resembles a group of serious artisans trying to perfect their skills in a stockade, while a high and highly distracting drama -- compelling and squalid -- unfolds around them. Indeed, it is hard to believe this team are trying to focus on, and prepare tactically for, a competition at the zenith of football, about which barely a word is spoken at Coverciano.

Over the past few days the scandals, which have captivated the most football-crazy nation on Earth, have galloped from their point of departure, when Juventus's general manager Luciano Moggi was accused of fixing referees. With the Old Lady facing relegation to Serie B, the ousted prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, tried to seize the moral high ground, but then the offices of his club, Milan, were raided by financial police. Scores of other teams are also to be investigated for alleged falsification of balance sheets.

Italy's coach, Marcello Lippi, is under pressure after his son Davide was put under criminal investigation last Friday for alleged illicit finance and "threats of violence" during consultancy work with the GEA agency, which represents some 200 players and coaches. The Italians have an expression: figlio di papa (daddy's boy) and GEA is run by none other than Moggi's son, Alessandro.

The scandals took their most important symbolic stride when the Milanese Judge Francesco Saverio Borelli was last week appointed to head the criminal investigation. The insinuation is crystal clear: Borelli spearheaded the operation codenamed Mani Puliti -- Clean Hands -- which put an entire political class under arrest in the 1990s. The present investigation is inevitably dubbed Piedi Puliti -- Clean Feet. This is more than a joke: Clean Hands began with a single warrant, signed by Borelli in Milan, then spread like wildfire across the political system, and football is providing kindling just as dry. Berlusconi, many of whose friends and political allies were caught in Borelli's net, jibed: "They've chosen their referee, just like Moggi."

The names of players are starting to surface as potential witnesses, most prominently Fabio Cannavaro, captain of Juventus and of Italy. And so the usual relaxed rules of engagement between players and battalions of reporters have changed. Training normally concludes with endless chiacciere, or chit-chat, but a diktat has gone out: all interviews must be supervised and recorded, and these tapes made available to Lippi.

But, like most rules in Italy, these are made to be broken, precisely because they involve irresistible chiacciere. As players leave practice little huddles form, indiscretions are proffered. Asked if the players talk about the scandals, Alessandro Nesta says: "We talk about little else. The whole business is a betrayal of those who love football. I want to turn back and smell the air of football as it was when I was little."

"We are trying to do our work in a correct and professional way," said Milan's midfielder Gennaro Gattuso, "but all this is very distracting. However, I think we have an opportunity. It's a chance to change Italian football, to clean up Italian football."

Andrea Pirlo pleads: "The players are apart from all this -- the cleanest and healthiest part of the game."

"It's been a very bad start," admits Gianluca Zambrotta of Juventus. "There's no denying it. To be a serious contender for the World Cup you have to have a degree of tranquillity. But we're working hard for that, to focus on what we have to do, which is to play our game."

Then there is Juve's goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon, with his own set of problems, summonsed while at dinner in the retreat by magistrates from Parma to discuss alleged betting, which is against the rules. Once back he ploughed through the scrum of cameras, head down, only affording himself a few remarks after he was cleared to go to Germany. "Now I can concentrate on the World Cup," he said, "with no other thought in my head."

The high point came when Cannavaro brazenly paraphrased the title his compatriot Lorenzo da Ponte penned for an opera by Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte -- they all do it. "This is not a matter limited to the managers of Juventus," said Cannavaro, straightforwardly, "the whole system of football functions like this."

The next morning, the team paraded their new stylish suits, specially designed by Dolce & Gabbana. Cannavaro looked striking but no one wanted to know about the glitz of alta moda, only the contents of a piece of paper read out solemnly by the federation spokesperson in which Cannavaro said: "I did not explain myself well," that this was "a moment for reflection for the world of football" and he had "every faith" in the judicial investigation.

Warfare between Juventus and Milan is unfortunate given that Italy's first XI is, with the probable exceptions of Fiorentina's Luca Toni and Roma's Francesco Totti, effectively a fusion of players from the two clubs. But in their private remarks the players show a maturity their masters would do well to learn from. While Berlusconi demands that two Juventus titles be rescinded and given to Milan, Gattuso said: "I don't want those titles, and if the judge grants them to us, I certainly won't celebrate them."

Lippi exuded inner calm, sauntering between the practice pitches and his friends in the press packs. The coach is known for his focus on "the mental game", and before the scandals broke talked about building a "club spirit" among the national side.

Then his son was put under criminal investigation. Lippi faced the most awkward moment -- to date -- of a career that has garnered five scudetti with Juventus.

"Of course I have spoken to Davide; he is calm and bitter," he said, then a sharp change of subject: "It matters not what work you do, but how you do it. These have been important days; I have seen some excellent work, and great will and determination among the boys. Now for the World Cup -- into the wolf's mouth."

"On the pitch we just have to put it all behind us," says Gattuso. "Everyone knows that we have a duty, an obligation, to the country, to the fans and to Italian football. For goodness sake, we're competing for the Coppa del Mondo not a coppa di nonno [literally grandpa's cup, the Italian term for a coffee ice-cream cone]."

by Ed Vulliamy | Florence, Italy
02 June 2006
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__sport/&articleid=273476

 

[ReBeL]

Milan chairperson Adriano Galliani said he may step down as league president once the scandal is cleared up.

"First of all we must rewrite the rules jointly, then we must find the right manager," he said.

"We can start a path that might end with me stepping aside as league president."

Galliani said he is "absolutely serene" about Milan's involvement in the scandal.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Sports/Soccer/2006/06/02/1611091-sun.html

 

[ReBeL]

Berlusconi implicated in football scandal



Former Italian prime minister and media magnate, Silvio Berlusconi, has been implicated in the Italian football scandal.

The accusations against Il Cavalliere, as he is known, were made by the lawyer acting for Luciano Moggi, the former director general of current champions Juventus of Turin who is at the heart of the scandal.

However, the UK Independent has reported that all this has changed after an interview in the Turin newspaper La Stampa yesterday, Mr Moggi's lawyer Fulvio Gianaria, claimed it was ridiculous to see his client as a monster of corruption. Pointing out that the charges against Mr Moggi were based on a tiny fraction of thousands of recorded phone conversations, he claimed "the carabinieri chose the conversations they regarded as relevant".

Instead, he claimed Mr Moggi "always moved to preserve the force of Juventus from the centre of important power" which was, he claimed, in Milan. He is the latest of several figures, including Fabio Cannavaro, captain of Juventus and Italy, to have hinted that the scandal goes beyond the Turin club to Mr Berlusconi.

This is the latest of Mr Berlusconi’s troubles after his political formation fared much worse than expected in regional elections over the weekend in which he only retained control of Milan with a reduced majority.

Next week a Milan judge will decided whether Bersluconi should stand trial for allegedly bribing UK lawyer David Mills, the estranged husband of UK culture minister Tessa Jowell, to give favourable testimony on his behalf. And the Spanish constitutional court has been asked by a Spanish judge to reopen an investigation into corruption charges against Mr Berlusconi stemming from his holdings in Spanish television channel Telecinco which Spanish prosecutors believe exceeded the 25 percent television channel ownership cap imposed by Spanish law. Prosecutors halted the proceedings, which began in the early 1990s, when Berlusconi became Italian prime minister and therefore gained immunity from prosecution. Berlusconi, who lost a parliamentary election against Romano Prodi in April, lost his right to immunity early in May when he officially resigned.

http://www.maltastar.com/pages/msfullart.asp?an=3395

 

[Snoop]

Rebel: thanx for you work, am sure everyone is apreciating that, this thread is active tnx to you (check the views number). I will appreciate if you only post the articles, without comments or smillies, I like the highlighting parts thou.. keep up the good work :thumbs:

 

[ReBeL]

Cannavaro, Trezeguet appear as witnesses in Serie A inquiry



ROME (AFP) - Italy skipper Fabio Cannavaro and his Juventus teammate, France international David Trezeguet, appeared before prosecutors investigating alleged corruption in Serie A.

The pair took time out from preparing for their respective World Cup campaigns to be quizzed over one of the main strands of the affair, the dealings of GEA World, Italy's largest firm of football agents.

Four GEA directors face charges of using threats and violence in their dealings in the transfer market.

The company is run by Alessandro Moggi, the son of former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi whose taped conversations with the head of the Italian referees' association triggered the scandal engulfing Italian football last month.

Moggi was heard telling Pierluigi Pairetto which referees he wanted assigned to certain league and European matches.

Both Cannavaro and Trezeguet were appearing as witnesses over their transfers to Juventus - the club in the eye of the storm - which were handled by GEA.

"Prosecutors were satisfied with my answers to their questions," Cannavaro said after the two hour hearing.

Cannavaro's lawyer, Giovanni Andrea Anfora, added: "The meeting was very cordial and relaxed. Cannavro answered all the questions which were put to him."

Trezeguet was next up before the panel, with his hearing also lasting around two hours.

"Everything went fine. I'm satisfied and now I can set off calmly for the World Cup," said the France striker.

Trezeguet was tackled on whether he'd be staying at Juventus if the Italian champions were found guilty of match fixing and demoted to the second division.

He told Ansa news agency: "It's a little early to talk about my future, we'll wait to see the outcome of the investigation."

AFP

 

[ReBeL]

Stay out of it, Kaiser



AC MILAN striker Alberto Gilardino has told German legend Franz Beckenbauer to mind his own business.

This was after Beckenbauer questioned Italy's ability to overcome the recent referee scandal that engulfed Serie A.

Italian football is still reeling from the revelations of match-fixing that recently forced the board of new champions Juventus to resign.

Gilardino, 24, said: ''Every single word against us by Beckenbauer is only more motivation.

''Besides, he should be more concerned with Germany's problems than those of other teams.''

Beckenbauer - nicknamed the Kaiser - had said: ''This is the most serious thing that world football has ever seen. Until recently, I thought that Italy were among the favourites but I do not think they can overcome this.''

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/sports/story/0,4136,107670,00.html

 

[ReBeL]

Italian's joy is muted as goalkeeper eyed in match-fixing scandal



Instead of celebrating a second consecutive Italian championship with Juventus and his inclusion on a World Cup squad for the third time, Gianluigi Buffon has been caught up in a match-fixing scandal that has prompted team and Italian soccer federation officials to resign and representatives of other clubs to be questioned.

Buffon, 28, was the first player to be interrogated regarding allegations that former Juventus director Luciano Moggi influenced refereeing assignments for Italian Serie A matches through his friendships and liaisons with federation officials.

Other teams, including AC Milan, Lazio, Inter Milan and Fiorentina also have been implicated. Those clubs comprise the bulk (14 of 23 players) of the Italian squad.

"He's (Buffon's) a great person," Italian striker Francesco Totti told the Associated Press. "I don't believe he did anything, but even if (he) did ... I would stand by him."

Buffon is regarded as one of the world's top keepers and a vital factor in Italy's attempt to erase the 2002 tournament defeat. Despite Buffon saving a penalty kick, South Korea exploited a few controversial refereeing decisions to knock out Italy 2-1 in the quarterfinals.

The last time Italy won the World Cup, in 1982, its captain was goalkeeper Dino Zoff, a player to whom Buffon has been compared since he made his pro debut at 17.

Buffon played five seasons with Parma before joining Juventus in 2001 for a world-record transfer fee for a goalkeeper ($49 million).

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/worldcup/2006-05-29-buffon_x.htm?csp=34

 

[ReBeL]

If You Rig It, They Will Come



In the summer of 1982, Italian soccer supporters discovered their very own Lazarus, and liked what they saw. Paolo Rossi, the center forward of Turin's mighty Juventus team, was brought into the national selection for that year's World Cup in Spain. Rossi played indifferently in the first round of games, but in three matches during the key second phase, against Brazil, Poland, and in the final against West Germany, he scored six goals, helping Italy win its first World Cup since 1938.

The thing was that Rossi the champion, the conqueror of Madrid, only played because the Italian soccer federation had cut a year out of his three-year ban from the sport for match-fixing while at the Perugia club. The decision to resurrect him was pragmatic, and it worked; but it also underlined the fuzzy boundary between corruption and success in Italian soccer. But where there is persistent vagueness there is also usually nemesis. It has now come in the form of a major scandal in Italy's professional league, even as the country's team prepares for the World Cup beginning next week in Germany.

While the scandal, or scandals, seemed mainly to involve Juventus in the early stages of exposure, it could well spread to include the Florence team, one of two Milanese sides, a Roman team, and perhaps more. Italian magistrates are looking at several files. In Naples, they are verifying whether the former Juventus general manager, Luciano Moggi, was allowed by the Italian federation's top refereeing official to pick pliable referees for Juventus matches. In an interview Moggi all but admitted the charge was true, and tried to justify his acts. Juventus, Italy's most successful side and this year's champion, has long been accused of buying off game officials. This prompted former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns the AC Milan club, to recently declare, "We demand they give us back the two league titles that are our due. We're tired of suffering injustice." The only problem is that AC Milan, too, is now thought to have engaged in the same practice.

A separate investigation in Parma is looking into whether some players participated in illegal betting, with magistrates focusing on the talented Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who is also the national keeper. Magistrates want to know if players wagered on their own games. Buffon, who allegedly served as middleman in the betting process, has said that he only bet on foreign games, at a time when this was still legal.

A third investigation in Turin, this time by the financial police, is trying to uncover possible irregularities in the transfer of players to Juventus. Police recently searched the homes of two team members, defender Fabio Cannavaro and the Swedish attacker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, as well as those of Moggi and another former club official. The players and teams involved in the transfers have all denied wrongdoing.

But it's the fourth investigation that is perhaps the most explosive, because, if wrongdoing is proven, it could show an institutionalized pattern of high-level manipulation, affecting much more than the few teams cited. Rome magistrates are looking into the behavior of GEA, Italy's largest and most dominant representative agency for soccer players and coaches. It is headed by Moggi's son Alessandro, but also employs scions of other prominent political or business families, including the son of Marcelo Lippi, the national team coach. There are suspicions that Luciano Moggi tried to pressure Lippi into choosing Juventus players for the national side, something Lippi denies; but more importantly, that the agency was used as Moggi's instrument of control over players, coaches, and the overall transfer market, giving him tremendous power to affect the outcome of matches. It has also been reported that players were intimidated into signing contracts with GEA, otherwise they risked being blacklisted.

As the sordid layers are peeled away, soccer fans and players are hoping the scandal will bring about a major cleansing of the Italian game. Already, the soccer federation has named a new commissioner, Guido Rossi, to oversee the process, though at 75 he is only there for the interval until a new commissioner is found. A common complaint heard is that money spawned the present crisis, that the beauty of the game was not for the first time sullied by cupidity. Therefore, the only way to resolve the problem is to prevent "financial interests" from dominating Italian soccer as they have for so long.

In fact, it's exactly the contrary assessment that might have a chance of saving the sport in Italy: far from curtailing financial interests, would-be reformers must allow them to proliferate, so that anybody can partake in the business of soccer, but transparently. The problem was never money, but that Moggi, GEA, the teams cooking game results, and corrupt officials in the Italian federation, had cornered the soccer market. The answer is not to exacerbate such distortions by denying the advantages of capitalism, but by taking capitalism to the limit and using it to crack open the notoriously closed circle that governs Italian soccer affairs, through measures allowing fair competition.

Juventus has already learned that markets can strike back hard. By May 31, the price of a team share on the Milan stock exchange had tumbled by more than half of its value compared to what it was before the scandal broke, a steady decline that has forced exchange officials to repeatedly suspend trading. The Agnelli family, which has a controlling stake in Juventus, demanded that its entire board (including Moggi) resign, and named the head of their investment company, IFIL (which controls 60 percent of Juventus stock), to take over management duties. But that's small peanuts compared to what may yet come. Because of the match-fixing, there is a very high likelihood that Juventus will be relegated to Italy's second or even third soccer division. The opportunity cost of lost television broadcasting and advertising revenues would be colossal, while the team would also lose its most illustrious players and its renowned coach.

But perhaps most unsettling will be the impact the scandal has on disillusioned fans, those who are in it for the exquisiteness of the sport and who have turned Juventus into the most popular team in Italy. Their disgust will cost the most in the longer term. To wean them back, Italian soccer officials, the Agnellis, players, politicians, and many more will need to introduce openness and integrity into what had become a seedy old-boy's club, so that everyone can dream of kicking for profits.

Michael Young
http://www.reason.com/links/links060106.shtml