Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina reacted with fury on Friday after they were all relegated from Italian football’s top-division and banned from Europe for their part in the country’s match-fixing scandal.
Juventus were also deducted 30 points from their total for next season and stripped of their last two league titles. Lazio and Fiorentina were penalised seven points and 12 points respectively.
AC Milan will stay in Serie A but will lose 15 points and will also be kicked out of the Champions League.
The decisions were handed out just five days after Italy won the World Cup with a penalty shoot-out victory over France in Berlin.
Juventus president Giovanni Cobolli Gigli said he was stunned by the decision and that the club will appeal.
”It’s incredible,” he said. ”We were expecting a fairer sentence. We don’t understand how we can be excluded from the championship.
”Juve is the only team which has clearly shown a desire to change. To be in Serie B with a 30-point deduction is absolutely unacceptable.
”We do not understand the different legal treatment applied to the four cases under consideration. As the facts have clearly demonstrated, the episodes relating to Juventus under the observation of the sporting tribunal are without question
comparable to those with which the other teams are charged.
”The difference being that in our case only two matches have been called into question. Therefore our priority is to look after the interests of our fans and those of the minor share holders, and we will do this straight away, by appealing to the Consiglio Federale [of the Italian football federation].”
Luciano Moggi, the former director of Juventus whose attempts to have specific referees assigned to his club’s matches sparked the scandal, was hit with a five-year suspension.
”I am not bitter for myself, but for the teams implicated and for their supporters,” he said on Friday.
”No match was fixed, no referees were favoured. It is why Juventus and the other clubs, but especially the fans, are frustrated by this sentence.”
Fiorentina were equally angry.
”It’s a profound injustice,” the club said in a statement.
”Out of respect for the city, the fans and the dignity of all those concerned, Fiorentina will battle with all its means to have the light shone on the facts and on its absolute innocence concerning all accusations of fraud.”
Lazio president Claudio Lotito, who was handed a three-year ban from all sporting activities, said he was stunned by the club’s punishment.
”It’s a sentence we were not expecting,” he said. ”Lazio has never tried to violate ethical rules.” – Sapa-AFP