Calciopoli appeals slammed

The chief investigator in the match-fixing trial has criticised the discounts afforded to Juventus and the other clubs in appeal as “bad for football.”

Francesco Saverio Borrelli (pictured) ran the investigation into the match-fixing scandal and was pleased with the original verdicts, which saw Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina relegated to Serie B and Milan ordered to begin the 2006-07 campaign with a 15-point penalty. However, on appeal the CAF left only the Bianconeri in the Second Division with a 17-point handicap rather than the original 30, while the other penalties were also slashed.

“We had noticed there was a strange climate around football with tacit agreements that made compromises likely,” revealed Borrelli in newspaper ‘La Repubblica’. “You could certainly say this was a ‘generous’ verdict and a decision of this kind is not good for football, let alone our international reputation. I think that to move forward we should’ve been harsher on these sides rather than reduce the sentences.”

The controversy arose after the CAF released its reasons for cutting the punishments, as President Piero Sandulli suggested the investigative team made a mistake in trying to penalise ‘guilt by association’ on a par with those instigating illegal manoeuvres.

“I think that Sandulli’s lecture was out of place and he could’ve avoided that comment. Nobody has ever said the sporting justice system includes guilt by association. We pointed out that it was wrong to talk of a Mafia-like organisation, but rather view it as a wide-ranging negative sensibility. Within the football world, people could count on this attitude to achieve illegal ends. It was a corrupt environment.”