Calciopoli

Calciopoli (Italian: [kalˈtʃɔːpoli]) was a sports scandal in Italy's top professional association football league Serie A and to a lesser extent Serie B.^{[nb 1]} Involving various clubs and numerous executives, both from the same clubs and from the main Italian football bodies (Italian Referee Association (AIA) [it; es], FIGC, and LNP), as well as some referees and referee assistants, the scandal was uncovered in May 2006, when a number of telephone tappings showed relations between clubs' executives and referee organizations during the football seasons of 2004–05 and 2005–06, being accused of selecting favourable referees. This implicated league champions Juventus and several other clubs, including Fiorentina, Lazio, AC Milan, and Reggina. In July 2006, Juventus was stripped of the 2004–05 Serie A title, which was left unassigned, and was downgraded to last place in the 2005–06 Serie A, as the title was subsequently awarded to Inter Milan, and relegated to Serie B. Initially Fiorentina and Lazio were also relegated though this was later overturned on appeal, meanwhile all five clubs received points penalties for the following season. In July 2006, the Italy national football team won the 2006 FIFA World Cup, beating the France national football team 5–3 in a penalty shoot-out following a 1–1 draw at the conclusion of extra time; eight Juventus players were on the football pitch in the 2006 FIFA World Cup final, five for Italy and three for France. Many prison sentences were handed out to sporting directors and referees but all were acquitted in 2015, after almost a decade of investigation, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations (at the time, it was about 4 years for the sports trial and 7.5 years for the ordinary trial), except for a one-year sentence confirmed to referee Massimo De Santis.

A subsequent investigation, dubbed Calciopoli bis, implicated many other clubs, including Brescia, Cagliari, ChievoVerona, Empoli, Inter Milan, Palermo, Udinese, and Vicenza; they were not put on trial due the statute of limitations. Although popularly known as a match-fixing scandal and focused on Juventus, no match-fixing violations were found within the intercepted calls for Juventus, there were no requests for specific referees, no demands for favours, no conversations between Juventus directors and referees were found, and the season was deemed fair and legitimate.^{[nb 2]} The club was absolved from any wrongdoings in the first verdict, while its sporting executives Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudo were found guilty and banned for life six months before their previous five-year ban expired; they were absolved on charges related to sporting fraud, and appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, once they exhausted their appeals in Italy's courts. Other club executives were found guilty but did not receive lifetime bans and returned to their previous or new positions, among them Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani and Lazio president Claudio Lotito, both of whom retained or gained important positions in Lega Serie A. Most referees and their assistants were either found not guilty or had their sentences annulled due to the statute of limitations; only Massimo De Santis and Salvatore Racalbuto were convicted.

Italy's Court of Appeal rejected damage claims from Atalanta, Bologna, Brescia, and Lecce due to the fact that no match in the 2004–05 championship was altered by non-football episodes. This led Juventus to request €444 million in damage claims, later updated to €551 million, to both Inter Milan and the FIGC, restoration of the 2005 scudetto, and the officialization of the 2006 scudetto; all its appeals were either rejected due to the courts declaring themselves not competent or due to technical issues rather than juridical issues. Attempts for peace talks between Juventus, the FIGC, and other clubs did not improve relations, and the case remains much debated and controversial. Juventus returned to Serie A after winning the 2006–07 Serie B championship and in the UEFA Champions League the following two years but then struggled with two consecutive seventh places, before starting a record nine-consecutive league titles run, two Champions League finals, and four consecutive domestic doubles. Milan won the 2006–07 UEFA Champions League but only won the 2010–11 Serie A championship and struggled throughout the 2010s until winning the 2021–22 Serie A. Inter Milan started a cycle of five-consecutive league titles, culminating in the treble with the 2009–10 UEFA Champions League win but then struggled throughout the 2010s, with Napoli and Roma as Juventus' main rivals, until winning the 2020–21 Serie A during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. In April 2021, all three clubs found themselves united in the European Super League project. The most recent league winner outside the three of them is Napoli in 2023.

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