ROME, July 14 (Reuters) - Fans of the three top clubs found guilty in Italy's match-fixing scandal took to the streets on Friday after hearing the news that their teams will be playing next season in the second-tier Serie B.
Bringing to a head the biggest scandal in European soccer
for decades, a sports tribunal in Rome sent Juventus, Fiorentina
and Lazio down to Serie B with points penalties.
The fourth club involved, AC Milan, will start their
campaign in the top Serie A division next season but with minus
15 points.
The biggest gathering of fans was in Rome, where about 400
Lazio supporters vented their feelings outside the hotel where
the tribunal convened to announce its verdict.
In Turin, angry Juventus fans gathered in front of the
club's headquarters to shout slogans against tribunal president
Cesare Ruperto and AC Milan.
In Florence, Fiorentina coach Cesare Prandelli spoke of his
'rage' against the verdicts, but the team's supporters made a
largely peaceful demonstration, blocking roads in the city
centre.
The verdicts were the culmination of a scandal which started
at the beginning of May with the publication of intercepted
phone conversations between former Juventus general manager
Luciano Moggi and Italian Football Federation officials
discussing refereeing appointments during the 2004-05 season.
Tribunal president Ruperto delivered the verdicts in an
ornate conference room, hung with chandeliers, in the basement
of the hotel in Rome.
Lazio fans had begun to gather in the street outside the
hotel several hours earlier.
At first they limited their protests to anti-Juventus
chants, but the mood turned uglier as the defence lawyers filed
out of the hotel following the verdicts.
The lawyer representing former Juventus chief executive
Antonio Giraudo, Luigi Chiappero, was surrounded and insulted by
fans as he walked to his car.
Lazio lawyer Gian Michele Gentile was forced to remain
inside the hotel by threats from the crowd.
'This is an unjust trial in the sense that Juve are the only
guilty ones but - as usual - the rest of us are being made to
pay for it,' 33-year-old Lazio fan Andrea Hotfield told Reuters.
'In this country football is founded on the fans' attachment
to the shirt, and the clubs, the federation and the officials
all take advantage of that.
'I don't know what we're going to do next, but I don't think
these will be easy days in Rome.'
