Juventus win league, scandal spreads

Milan: Juventus were crowned champions of Italy on Sunday but match-fixing allegations totally overshadowed the final day of the season, with the club's 29th title surrounded by rancour and resignations.

Shortly after Juve were presented with their trophy, Luciano Moggi, their general manager who is at the centre of the match-fixing investigations, announced he was quitting and the coach of rivals Inter Milan claimed recent championships were fixed.

Italy's outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns AC Milan, said the scandal meant that his club, who finished second in the past two seasons, should be awarded the last two titles.

While Juve fans were dancing in the street of Turin, Moggi appeared on television to announce he was resigning a day before he is due to face public prosecutors in Rome.

"From tomorrow (Monday) I will have resigned as general manager of Juventus, from this evening the world of football is no longer my world," a shaken-looking Moggi said.

"Now I will think only about defending myself from all the malice that been said about me," added Moggi, who has long been regarded as the most powerful club official in Italian football.

The scandal, which has led to a series of resignations at the Italian Football Federation and has resulted in 41 people being placed under investigation by public prosecutors, followed the publication of intercepted telephone conversations featuring Moggi.

In the phone calls, Moggi discussed refereeing appointments with senior federation officials during the 2004-05 season and also bragged of locking a referee in a changing room after a game.

"I ask you for a courtesy, don't ask me any questions because I don't have the desire or the strength. I don't have the soul for it, they have killed it," Moggi said.

If found guilty of involvement in match-fixing, Juve could be stripped of their last two titles and demoted to Serie B.

Juventus coach Fabio Capello said he was proud of his team's title win. "We have our heads held high and deserve this title. We are proud," Capello said before urging people to wait before making judgements on the investigations.

PAGE_BREAK

But Inter Milan coach Roberto Mancini, whose team finished third in Serie A, had no doubt about the gravity of the situation.

"It is difficult to make an evaluation when you play in fixed championships, in fact it is impossible, " he said.

"It is a very serious matter. The most serious ever heard of in the history of world football," Mancini added.

Berlusconi, who lost last month's general elections but remains a key political and business figure, said: "We demand they give us back the two league titles that are our due. We're tired of suffering injustice."

An anti-Mafia magistrate investigating the allegations called on Sunday for soccer's elite to come forward and help him clean up the game.

In a newspaper interview, Giuseppe Narducci, who spent 10 years battling Naples's notorious Camorra gangsters, said he and other magistrates were "undertaking an extraordinary investigative effort" to clean up Italian soccer.

"The time for chatter is over," Narducci told La Repubblica daily. "Whoever knows something must find the courage to come forward and tell the magistrates. For the world of football this is a one-and-only chance."

The scandal has cast a cloud over Italy's World Cup plans. On Monday coach Marcello Lippi has to brave the press and present the squad he will take to the June 9-July 9 finals in Germany.

On Tuesday, Italy's sports authority is due to appoint a "commissar" to take over the soccer federation, whose chief has resigned amid the chaos.

The world of business is also concerned by the scandal. Stockmarket regulator Consob has asked the investigators to hand it any evidence of share price interference, a source close to the watchdog said.

Two of the clubs whose officials are under investigation are traded on the Milan bourse: Juventus and Lazio. The stakes are high for clubs if the allegations stick.

Leading financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore said Juventus could lose 120 million euros in sponsorship and television rights if it were to be demoted from Serie A over the affair.