Prosecutors investigate Italian football
Friday, 12 May 2006 18:06The biggest scandal to hit Italian football in more than 20 years mushroomed today when prosecutors revealed they were investigating top clubs, referees and officials for suspected match-fixing.
Two senior officials of Juventus are among 41 people who are formally under investigation, judicial sources in Naples said.
AC Milan and Lazio feature in an investigation of 19 Serie A matches from last season which investigators suspect could have been rigged.
In the capital, carabinieri police searched the soccer federation's offices and those of the referees' association. Referee Massimo De Santis, who will take part in next month's World Cup in Germany, is being investigated in the Naples probe.
The Naples magistrates are looking into suspicions of 'criminal association' and 'sporting fraud'.
In the last major scandal to hit Italian football, AC Milan and Lazio were demoted to Serie B in 1980 following a match-fixing and illegal gambling investigation.
