Juventus and Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro on Thursday poured water on the firestorm he sparked the day before by claiming the whole of Italian soccer and not just Juve was to blame for a corruption scandal that has sent shock waves through the game.
Sources inside the Italy camp said Cannavaro made his backtracking statement after an angry call from Italian soccer's emergency supremo Guido Rossi. Rossi has gone out of his way to keep Italy players focused on the upcoming World Cup as he sorts out a match-fixing scandal that revolves around Juve's former general manager Luciano Moggi.
On Wednesday, Cannavaro claimed that "the whole Italian soccer system" was like the allegedly crooked network set up by Moggi, insisted that Juve's disputed 2005 and 2006 titles had been won fair and square, and stressed that until probes were over, "the rest is just talk".
At a hastily called press conference Thursday, after Rossi reportedly put a flea in his ear, the Juve defender insisted that he had not "succeeded in conveying what I meant". "We want clean soccer. I have the utmost confidence in criminal justice, in sporting justice and above all in special administrator Guido Rossi, who has shown such willingness to support us".
"I confirm that whoever did wrong in this affair must pay".
Cannavaro, 32, has captained Italy 34 times.
His 2004 transfer from Inter to Juve is one of 40 deals investigators are scrutinising in one of the offshoots of the main investigation, a probe into suspected false accounting. On Thursday tax police searched offices of Inter and AC Milan in the false accounting probe.
In a separate development, an association of 5,000 fan clubs said it would stand as civil plaintiff (friend of the court) in any trials resulting from the probes. The association also urged Italian Olympic Committee CONI - which controls all Italian sport - to help draw up a Fans Charter regulating the mutual rights and duties of all those who "consume" soccer.
As well as Juve, Milan and Inter, investigators are probing 14 other Serie A clubs for suspected false accounting: Empoli, Livorno, Palermo, Fiorentina, Ascoli, Cagliari, Sampdoria, Messina, Parma, Roma, Lazio,Siena, Reggina and Chievo. They are also looking at 17 Serie B clubs.
