Inter to sue Moggi over match-fixing comments

Inter will sue former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi for comments he made about their president in a newspaper interview, Inter owner Massimo Moratti said yesterday.

Moggi, at the centre of a match-fixing scandal that has rocked Italian football, said in the interview with daily Repubblica that Inter were unfairly trying to take the moral high ground in the scandal which has engulfed Juve, Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina.

Moggi's intercepted phone conversations formed the basis of the initial match-fixing investigation. On Friday, he was banned from soccer for five years and handed a 50,000 euro fine.

Moggi, who denies any wrongdoing, said it was not fair that he should be singled out as the central player in the scandal and accused Inter president Giacinto Facchetti of a series of illicit dealings.

But Moratti said: "These are the words of desperate people, Facchetti, above all, and we at Inter, will sue Moggi because we have nothing to do with this and these things should not even be thought of."

Moratti also reiterated his call for last season's Serie A title to be awarded to Inter, who have not been involved in the biggest scandal in Europe for decades.

The soccer tribunal investigating the match-fixing allegations relegated champions Juventus to Serie B on Friday and stripped them of their last two titles.