Prosecutor wants Juve relegated two divisions

Champions Juventus should be relegated to the third division and three other top clubs thrown out of Italian soccer's top league, the prosecutor in a sports match-fixing trial said yesterday.

Stefano Palazzi told the tribunal that Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina should be despatched to Italy's second division, Serie B, and Juve also stripped of the Serie A titles they won in the last two seasons.

The prosecutor's demands are more severe than expected.

Juve are at the centre of Italy's biggest sporting trial after phone taps revealed one of its top managers discussing referee appointments with officials. Palazzi said Juve should be relegated to "below Serie B".

The prospect of Italy's most successful team plummeting into the also-rans of soccer sent a shiver through investors and the Milan stock exchange suspended Juve's shares.

Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire who owns Milan, said he was "indignant" at the prosecutor's request to relegate his club and said Milan should be handed Juve's last two titles if the Turin team were found guilty.

"Milan have never had refereeing favours, on the contrary, they've been victims of refereeing favours in favour of other clubs," he said.

After two days of procedural wrangling, the sports trial at Rome's Olympic stadium began in earnest yesterday with some of the 26 defendants - club officials, football federation staff, referees and linesmen - personally pleading their case.

The tribunal has said it aims to deliver its verdicts next Monday, the day after the World Cup final.

All the accused have denied wrongdoing. Former Juve chief executive Antonio Giraudo was one of the first to speak.

"All kinds of things go on in football: people give Rolexes to referees, people fix the accounts. What I'm saying is that this is an environment in which you have to protect yourself," he said.

Palazzi asked for Giraudo to be handed a five-year ban plus a 5,000 euro fine for every instance of sporting fraud.

He asked for the same punishment for Luciano Moggi, Juve's former general manager, for brothers Diego and Andrea Della Valle, the owner and president of Fiorentina, and for Claudio Lotito, the chairman of Lazio.

He also asked for all four teams to have points docked at the start of next season.