Italy's biggest sports trial opened on Thursday with four top soccer clubs and 26 officials facing match-fixing charges before a string of procedural motions forced an adjournment until next Monday.
Champions Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio, four of soccer-mad Italy's elite teams, risk being forced out of the nation's Serie A league and European competition if found guilty of conspiring with referees to rig matches.
Tribunal president Cesare Ruperto opened the trial with a roll call of the accused. They stood up behind rows of desks as their names were read inside a spartan, low-ceilinged room in Rome's Olympic Stadium. Defence lawyers then raised a list of objections that forced Ruperto to halt the trial after less than three hours.
"We will adjourn until Monday, July 3," Ruperto said after allowing five Serie B teams hoping to be promoted - Bologna, Brescia, Lecce, Messina and Treviso - to take part in the proceedings and giving them until Monday to prepare their cases.
The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has promised to finish the trial by July 9, the day of the World Cup final.
However, Thursday's brief proceedings raised questions about whether the tribunal will meet the federation's timetable. Among the accused packed into the room were former FIGC president Franco Carraro, AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani and referee Massimo De Santis, who was barred from the World Cup after the "Clean Feet" scandal erupted in May.
Former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, whose tapped phone calls triggered the scandal, was not present. He has said he does not need to answer to the tribunal because he has quit Juventus.
The accused are charged with sporting fraud and unfair conduct, which could lead to the teams being relegated and the individuals being suspended or banned from football. Juventus runs the greatest risk of being demoted and the club appears resigned to playing a year outside Serie A.
"We have worked to get things back to normal and prepare a team that in two years will return to being a winning squad," Juventus CEO Carlo Sant'Albano said in a newspaper interview.
A meeting of Juventus shareholders in Turin elected a new board on Thursday, and one investor after another stood up and accused the outgoing board of turning a blind eye to dealings they said had tarnished the club's 29 Serie A championships.
"If I think of the shares I bought and the season ticket that I had, I involuntarily participated in and financed 'Moggiopoli,'" one shareholder said, referring to the widely used nickname for the scandal.
Juventus's new board named Jean-Claude Blanc, head of the French Open tennis championships, as CEO. Last week former French captain Didier Deschamps, who used to play for Juventus, said he had been asked to coach the club if it were relegated.
Coach Fabio Capello is almost certain to leave if the club go down and several players could also be tempted to move. Juventus shares have lost half their value since the scandal erupted in early May, and were down 4.26 percent at 1.28 euros at 1356 GMT. The trial will run for the rest of the World Cup in Germany. Thirteen 13 players from the four accused clubs play for Italy who face Ukraine on Friday in the World Cup quarter-finals.
FIGC has said any appeals will be heard by July 20, giving it time before a July 27 deadline to submit the names of teams for next season's Champions League and UEFA Cup competitions.
In a reminder that the court was a sports tribunal, the judges wore suits instead of the robes that are worn in criminal trials. Prosecutors in four cities have also launched criminal probes into soccer's murky dealings.
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