Juventus relegated, stripped of titles

[SevenSeasJim]

ROME (AP) - Italian soccer power Juventus was demoted to the Italian second division for match-fixing by a sports tribunal Friday and stripped of its last two Serie A titles.

Lazio and Fiorentina also were demoted to Serie B, the second division, while AC Milan was spared demotion but given a 15-point penalty in the top division for next season. AC Milan also had 44 points taken off its total from last season and won't play in European tournaments this season.

Juventus was given a 30-point penalty, meaning it will have to struggle to climb back to the top league. Lazio received a seven-point penalty, and Fiorentina was penalized 12 points.

The decision came five days after Italy won its fourth World Cup title, defeating France in the final in Berlin.

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* Penalties may lead to Serie A departures

Thirteen of the 23 players on the Italian squad that won the World Cup play for the four penalized teams.

Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, one of 25 soccer officials who faced charges of match-fixing and disloyalty, was banned from soccer for five years.

Franco Carraro, who resigned as the head of the Italian soccer league when the scandal broke and is a member of the International Olympic Committee, was banned for 4½ years.

Former Juventus chief executive Antonio Giraudo also was banned for five years. Fiorentina owner Diego Della and Lazio president Claudio Lotito were banned for four years and 3½ years, respectively.

Moggi and Giraudo were accused of creating a network of contacts with federation officials to influence refereeing assignments and get players booked. The two resigned in May, along with the club's entire board.

The sentence for Juventus marks its first demotion since teams started being sent down in 1897. The Turin-based powerhouse has won 29 league titles - including the ones in 2005 and 2006 stripped by Friday's verdict - two Champions League titles, four Italian Supercups, two European Supercups and two Intercontinental Cups.

In 2002, Fiorentina was declared bankrupt and forced to play in the fourth division Serie C2. It was promoted on sporting merits into Serie B in 2003 and returned to the top division the following year.

The verdicts can be appealed within five days to a higher sports court.

The sports prosecutors had sought harsher penalties for some of the teams, requesting the demotion of Juventus to third-tier Serie C or lower, and of AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio to Serie B.

Prosecutors in Naples, Rome, Parma and Turin are conducting separate criminal probes into sports fraud, illegal betting and false bookkeeping - but any indictments could take months to be issued.

[mister slippery]

[Davey Boy 2.0]

well it'll be interesting to see who ends up where

firesales aplenty i'd imagine