ITALIAN SCANDAL PUNISHMENT

From The Independent on Italy's match fixing scandal.

From the top of the world to the dregs of the game. Having won the World Cup only last weekend, Italy is now having to come to terms with four of its and the Continent's biggest clubs being found guilty in a match-fixing case of staggering impact.The punishments are severe: Juventus, the champions, relegated and hit with a 30-point deduction for next season in Serie B; Fiorentina relegated and docked 12 points for next season; Lazio, relegated and docked seven points; and Milan docked 44 points in last season's standings, dropping them to eighth place and outside the qualifying places for European competition. Not relegated they will start next season with a 15-point deficit. The clubs are appealing against the ruling.

The scale of the deceit, the scale of the punishment is difficult to comprehend. Only Roma among the champions of the past 15 seasons remain untouched. In English terms, that equates to Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool being accused of wholesale cheating. Those four have won all but two of the past 20 titles.

But the response to the sentences has been mixed within Italy. Perhaps predictably given that Milan received the lightest sentence, a spokesman for Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian Prime Minister who owns Milan, said: "This sentence on soccer strikes at nearly 20 million fans. Our best players will be forced to play abroad. Well done. Justice served."

But Italy's Justice Minister, Clemente Mastella, was hardly delighted with the decision, saying that the game as a whole was not corrupt. "At least I'm not the sports justice minister. I can't agree with the sentence," he said. "I don't believe that the whole system is rotten. There are some amputations that need to be made but an Italian soccer that wins the World Cup frankly can't be great abroad and less than that at home."

However, some thought that rough justice was needed to purge the sport of chronic corruption. Prime Minister Romano Prodi said those guilty "have to pay, even if we are world champions".

Didier Deschamps, appointed on Monday as successor to Fabio Capello as Juve's coach, insisted yesterday that he had not made a mistake. "The penalty we have been given is a big one, but we can only do our best," he said. "It is going to be difficult to get back to Serie A in one year, and it might take two, but even so, we will give it our best shot. I have never had any doubts and I made my choice [to coach Juve] aware of the insecurity surrounding the club."

The scandal broke in May with the publication of intercepted telephone conversations between Luciano Moggi, the former Juventus general manager, and the Italian football authorities in which refereeing appointments were discussed, so everyone around the sport had been waiting for a verdict for several weeks. Moggi was banned from the sport for five years, and Franco Carraro, the former football federation president, for four and a half years

Moggi insisted there had been no wrongdoing. "No match was fixed, no referee was pressured," he was quoted as saying in the Italian media yesterday. "I'm not saddened for myself but for the teams involved and for their fans."

The predominant view in the Italian press was that the sentences were harsh. "Big blow" was the front-page headline in the sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport. Rome's sports newspaper, Corriere Dello Sport, claimed Juve, Lazio and Fiorentina were severely penalised, and it said: "Juve pays heavily as they are practically condemned to play two years in Serie B. Milan pays softly as they remain in Serie A, maintain their TV rights and can still point to the Scudetto next season."