Judges work on verdict July 7

ROME -- The sports trial in Italy's soccer scandal wrapped up Friday as the seven judges retired to deliberate on the fate of four top soccer clubs facing demotion to lower divisions on match-fixing charges.

Lead judge Cesare Ruperto said it could take from three to 15 days for verdicts.

Prosecutors are seeking demotion for Juventus to Serie C -- the third division -- or lower; and for AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio to be relegated to Serie B. They are also seeking to strip Juventus, the club at the center of the scandal, of the league titles it won in the past two seasons.

Twenty-five soccer officials -- including referees -- also face charges of match-fixing and disloyalty at the tribunal set up by the Italian soccer federation at the Olympic stadium. The officials could be banned from holding jobs in soccer.

Ruperto dismissed the claim that summary justice would be handed down in the worst scandal in Italian soccer history.

"Some say that the sentence has already been written," Ruperto told the lawyers and prosecutors before closing the trial. "If that is so we invite them to hand it over, to save us some work."

In the final session, a lawyer for former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi defended the man at the center of the scandal.

Moggi and former Juventus chief executive Antonio Giraudo are accused of creating a network of contacts with federation officials to influence refereeing assignments and get players booked. The two resigned in May, along with the club's entire board.

Moggi, who defended himself in a TV interview last week, never showed up at the trial and his lawyer Paolo Trofino told the tribunal Friday that it was to avoid "further stress."

Trofino asked the judges to throw out the charges on technical grounds, arguing that Moggi could not be subject to a sports tribunal as he had resigned and was no longer employed in soccer. He also said the sports trial should have been suspended, pending the result of criminal investigations into the scandal.

A similar request was already rejected at the start of the trial. The judges said they will rule on this repeated request when they issue their final verdict.

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 to be issued.

Lawyers for Juventus have acknowledged that contacting refereeing officials was unsportsmanlike - but deny match-fixing. They say that demotion to the second division would be an "acceptable" sanction.

Also on trial is former federation president Franco Carraro -- who resigned in May -- plus Milan vice president Adriano Galliani, Fiorentina owner Diego Della Valle and Lazio President Claudio Lotito.

These officials and clubs have denied any wrongdoing and asked the charges to be dismissed.

The soccer federation had initially said a verdict would come before the World Cup final on Sunday, pitting Italy against France. But the slow pace of the trial has shelved that timetable.

Appeals would have to be heard by the end of July -- the deadline for deciding European competitions.

This looks like it could take longer then monday for them to decide, I can't take this anymore, I just have to know.

BTW on the official Milan site they said that if Milan are found guilty they will fight it in a real caurt, and that is what should be done I think because the more this drags along the more it looks like a big political conspiracy against Silvio.

If they relegate us over 1min and 45secs of conversation that doesn't even hint that they are trying to fix matches then we should definately fight it with everything we have.

They are punishing clubs for being corrupt when they are corrupt themselves this cannot happen to either of the 3 clubs and Juve should only go to serie B, we got as many calls against us from the refs as much as Inter and Roma so we shouldn't even be involved in this whole thing

If this presists any longer, I would take into consideration that Milan r neck deep into this scandal..

.. nuf that I think Milan must have had enough dirt in their corner to be dragged into all this, it's up to the lawyers to get us out.

I still don't believe we fixed matches. Juve have countless taped calls that show that they are totally guilty of it, but all they have on us is 2 minutes at best and those 2 minutes don't even suggest that we fixed anything.

And our lawyers, lazio's and Fiorentina's lawyers said they wanted all charges to be dropped against them because their wasn't sufficient evidence that would be sufficient enough to find us guilty and even relegate us when the evidence they found against us wouldn't even entail us to paying a fine let alone relegate us and docking points from us.

Juve's lawyers however said they would fully accept to be relegated to serie B because they know that the evidence against them is overwhelming and they can't fight against it.

After this hoax of a trail ends I expect Lazio, Milan and Fiorentina to take this to the European court and even if necissary a real court. This is just all political bullsh!t from Guido Rossi who be the way used to be 1 of the board directors at Inter and a very good friend of Moratti.

And don't you find it odd that the company that taped the calls have Moratti as a share holder and no Inter calls have been taped also the prosecuter and some of the judges have always been against Berlusconi when it came to politics and it is a well known fact that they and the man who ran the investigation have been on Berlusconi's case since the early 90's when he first got into politics. They know that they can't nail him so they are trying to ruin one of the things that he is close to which is Milan.

This whole trail and investigation was corrupt from the minute Guido Rossi was appointed as head of FIGC this is just a big conspiracy, like they need another one of those in Italy!!!!!

This is getting boring...