ROME, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Italian police said on Friday they had issued nine arrest warrants for suspected market rigging and extortion related to shares in Lazio.
Judicial sources said one of the arrest warrants was for
Giorgio Chinaglia, a former Italy striker and ex-Lazio chairman
who was also a star player for the New York Cosmos in the 1970s.
The police said in a statement they had investigated a 34
percent jump in the value of Lazio shares earlier this year
after rumours that a foreign company was bidding for the club.
No one at Lazio was immediately available to comment and
Chinaglia could not be reached. Police said the 59-year-old, who
led Lazio to their first-ever Serie A title in 1974, was
residing in the United States.
Rome prosecutors in March launched an investigation into
Chinaglia, who they suspected of claiming to represent a
Hungarian drugs company that wanted to buy a controlling stake
in the club, one of the judicial sources said.
At the end of March, Hungary's Richter Gedeon Rt denied it
was interested in buying into the club.
'The warrants regard communications, which lacked any basis
in fact, which were circulated in the early months of this year
by a few individuals about how a foreign group was interested in
buying a controlling stake in the club,' the police statement
said.
Five of the arrest warrants were for market rigging and the
other four were for fans who police believe tried to intimidate
Lazio Chairman Claudio Lotito into selling the club.
Lazio was one of five Serie A clubs prosecuted by a sporting
tribunal in the summer in a match-rigging scandal.
