An Italian sports tribunal demoted Juventus to the second division for the first time in its history and stripped it of its last two Serie A titles yesterday. Lazio and Fiorentina were also demoted to the Serie B, while AC Milan was spared relegation but penalised 15 points and will not compete in Europe this season.

Of the 26 officials or referees accused in the scandal, 19 received sentences ranging from the maximum five-year ban to a warning; five were acquitted; and two were banned for life without prosecution because they resigned before being charged.

The sentences — handed down five days after Italy won its fourth World Cup title — can be appealed within five days to a higher sports court.

Hundreds of fans of Lazio, the capital’s other team along with AS Roma, gathered outside a Rome hotel where judges read the verdicts in Italy’s biggest sports trial, defending their club’s virtue.

Raucous chants rose from the crowd against Lazio president Claudio Lotito, whom fans held responsible for the team’s troubles and who received a 3 1/2-year ban.

“If we end up in B, I don’t see why I should spend my money to go to the stadium,” said Lazio fan Piero Meloni.

Indeed, the scandal is projected to take a financial toll on the clubs involved — and game-day receipts are the least of their worries. Broadcast rights may need to be re-negotiated for the teams relegated to Serie B, and sponsorship contracts for Juventus may be endangered if it is unable to work its way back up to Serie A in one season.

Thirteen of Italy’s 23-man roster that won Sunday’s World Cup final belong to the four teams penalised, and already speculation has begun about whether they would transfer because the teams could no longer afford them.

Milan released a statement saying it expected the verdict against it would be overturned, calling it “a grave injustice”.

Besides relegation, Juventus was penalised 30 points, making it more difficult to return to the first division. Fiorentina was penalised 12 points and Lazio seven.

The toughest penalties to individuals were against former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi and former club chief executive Antonio Giraudo, who received the maximum five-year ban for match-fixing and disloyalty, with a recommendation to the Italian soccer federation (FIGC) to make it a ban for life.

Prosecutors in Naples, Rome, Parma and Turin are conducting separate criminal probes into sports fraud, illegal betting and false bookkeeping — but any indictments could take months.

‘Italians break World Cup trophy’

Sydney: It has been less than a week since Italy’s penalty shootout victory over France in Berlin, but the coveted trophy is no longer in one piece. Pictures on the front page of Italian newspaper Ilmessaggero showed skipper Fabio Cannavaro staring at the cup, then holding up what appeared to be a piece of green malachite that has broken off its base. When the picture was taken, Cannavaro was sitting on the Italian team bus when on his way to visit Gianluca Pessotto, the former Juventus player who is in hospital in Turin after falling from a window of the club’s offices during the tournament. The piece may have come off the trophy on the bus, according to the newspaper which also claimed it was later fixed up with glue. The Italian captain admitted that he slept with the trophy on the night of winning the final, Sydney Morning Herald reported. (PTI)