Lazio and Milan claim innocence
Thursday, 6 July 2006 14:37Lazio and AC Milan have no case to answer in a match-fixing trial, their lawyers said today, a day after Juventus said the champions might accept relegation to the second division.
In an apparent split between the four clubs under investigation, lawyers for Lazio and Milan said their clubs had done nothing wrong to justify the mandatory relegations proposed by a sports tribunal prosecutor.
In a case that has rocked Italy the prosecutor has charged the three clubs plus former champions Fiorentina with sporting fraud.
He has recommended that Juventus, Serie A champions in the past two seasons, be sent down to the third division while AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio be demoted to the second division.
On Wednesday, Cesare Zaccone, a lawyer for Juventus, told the hearing that if his clients were found guilty "an acceptable punishment could be that of the other clubs, in other words (relegation to) the second division with points deducted".
Lazio lawyer Gian Michele Gentile said today that the Rome club would not be following Juventus in suggesting an acceptable punishment.
"We at Lazio are innocent. We don't have anything to admit. Obviously Juventus' lawyers have decided it was better to do it like that. But we at Lazio do not have anything to hide," he said on his way into the tribunal in Rome's Olympic Stadium.
The judges are looking into suspicions the clubs, their management, Italian football officials and referees tried to influence the outcome of matches by interfering with the appointment of referees, charges denied by the accused.
