ROME, 16 May 2006 — Prosecutors questioned the Juventus official at the center of Italy’s match-fixing scandal yesterday while the freshly-crowned Italian champions had trading in their shares suspended after they slumped for the fourth straight day.
Luciano Moggi, who resigned as a general manager of Juventus on Sunday, spent some seven hours facing questions from prosecutors investigating the telephone taps that have rocked Italian football.
“It was calm and without bitterness,” Moggi’s lawyer Fulvio Gianaria said after the hearing.
“There was a general discussion for half of the time and then we examined individual incidents.” Moggi features heavily in the published telephone intercepts that prompted prosecutors in Naples to place 41 people under investigation, including referees as well as club and federation officials.
In the taps Moggi discussed refereeing appointments with top football federation officials and in one case bragged of locking a referee in his changing room after a game.
The scandal, which overshadowed Juve’s title win on Sunday, has wiped about 62 million euros, or 23 percent, off of Juve’s market worth in the last week, putting the company’s value today at around 209 million euros.
Milan’s borse stepped in with measures to limit declines in shares of Juventus after continuing headlines over the club prompted a slump that triggered their suspension.
Juve’s second successive title, the 29th in their history, may be only provisional due to various legal probes. If found guilty of involvement in match-fixing — even attempting to influence results — Juve could be stripped of their last two titles and demoted to Serie B.
Financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore has estimated Juventus could lose 120 million euros in television and sponsorship income if forced out of the top league.
Juve’s entire board resigned last week following the publication of the intercepts.
AC Milan, owned by outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Rome club Lazio and Fiorentina, owned by Diego Della Valle, head of luxury shoe maker Tod’s, are the three other clubs linked to the investigation.
The affair also overshadowed the announcement of Italy’s World Cup squad, but coach Marcello Lippi said he was sure the national side would not be affected by the investigations. “Italy will give a great impression of itself at the World Cup from a technical and moral point of view,” former Juventus coach Lippi told a news conference.
