Rome: Champions Juventus face almost certain relegation as a result of Italy's match-fixing scandal while AC Milan may receive lighter punishment, media said on Friday.
The Football Federation's (FIGC) prosecutor charged Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio, as well as 26 individuals including officials of the clubs and the federation itself, eight referees and two linesmen.
They were all ordered to appear before a sports tribunal in a trial starting on June 29 in Rome's Olympic Stadium.
The FIGC issued its ruling after Italy secured a place in the second round of the World Cup by beating the Czech Republic 2-0. The combination, as one television commentator put it, was "heaven in Germany and hell in Rome".
Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who plays for Juventus, said the charges would not hurt the national side's chances.
"(The scandal) has not left any mark on us, there is nothing official, no sentence and every one of us is thinking exclusively about the World Cup," he said.
Thirteen of Italy's 23-man squad at the World Cup play for the four clubs facing charges.
Former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, former Juventus CEO Antonio Giraudo and Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani were among those charged, their clubs said.
La Gazzetta dello a sport newspaper said the charge that Moggi sought to influence refereeing appointments to benefit Juventus left the Turin giants in an extremely perilous position.
"It is a terrible accusation, something that could send the club down to Serie C," the paper said.
Moggi will seek to be exempted from the trial on the grounds that he quit as Juve's general manager on May 14, his lawyer Paolo Trofino said.
Moggi refused to speak to the FIGC's investigators, and his lawyers cite the case of a former Sampdoria official Emiliano Salvarezza, whose refusal to appear in front of a sports justice trial in 2001 was upheld by a civil court.
Juventus, 29 times champion of Italy, said late on Thursday it would study the charges and reserved the right to defend itself. But unlike AC Milan and Lazio, it did not reject the accusations.
The two main charges - sporting fraud and violating fairness and probity - can be punished by fines, bans and relegations.
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The verdicts will be delivered between July 7 and 9 - the latter being the day of the World Cup final.
Juventus shares, which have lost about half their value since the scandal broke in early May, initially bounced higher on short-covering on the Milan bourse.
According to media, which obtained the prosecutor's charge sheet, all four clubs were accused of "sporting fraud".
Moggi and Giraudo face charges of sporting fraud and also of breaking rules governing fairness in the sport, Juventus said.
Galliani, who quit as president of the Italian Football League shortly after the charges were announced but said he did nothing wrong - faces a single charge of violating fairness and probity, AC Milan said. Media said that put him in a slightly better position.
The sporting fraud charge against Milan, European champions six times, was based on a single Serie A match against Chievo in April 2005, Milan said.
Juventus have been at the heart of the scandal since it began early last month with the publication of intercepted telephone conversations between Moggi and senior FIGC officials discussing refereeing appointments for matches during the 2004-05 season.
The eight referees who were charged included Massimo De Santis, who was the FIGC's proposed referee for the World Cup until he was withdrawn after the scandal broke.
"I don't think I've ever commmitted any crimes on the field of play," De Santis said.
Besides the FIGC trial, prosecutors in four cities are conducting investigations that could lead to criminal charges.
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