Italian prosecutors on Friday posted an appeal against an acquittal of Italian soccer giant Juventus for giving players banned substances. The Turin prosecutors, who included former Palermo anti-Mafia chief Giancarlo Caselli and Italy's top anti-doping sleuth Antonio Guariniello, declined to comment on their case.
But reporters managed to get judicial sources to voice optimism that they had reportedly "demolished" the Juve defence attorney's arguments used to convince an appeals court in December.
In the appeal, club doctor Riccardo Agricola had a one year, ten-month sentence for sporting fraud quashed. Juve CEO Antonio Giraudo's acquittal at the original trial in November 2004 was upheld.
Juventus, which is owned by the Agnelli family, has marshalled all its legal might in the case. A year ago it obtained a favourable, albeit non-binding ruling from world sport's supreme arbitration panel. The ruling was requested by Italian sports supreme body CONI from the the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne.
CONI had asked CAS for its opinion in relation to polemics on whether Juventus, 27-time Italian champion, should keep the three scudetti and one European Cup it won during the incriminated period from 1994 to 1998. CAS said "the use of substances which are not expressly prohibited cannot be sanctioned with disciplinary measures."
In the 2004 civil case, Agricola was convicted of giving players substances in such a way as to constitute doping. The verdict cited the use of the now-notorious blood booster EPO as well as the potentially harmful use of permitted substances.
It stressed that Juventus itself was exonerated only because there was not sufficient evidence to prove the case. The judge said the doctor "could not have acted alone".
But December's appeals verdict cast severe doubt on the EPO findings, said that players were always aware of the substances they were taking, and in any case claimed that Italy's strict recent anti-doping laws should not be applied to such an old case.
In the long initial trial that ended in November 2004, Juve stars cited memory loss or mental confusion in claiming they could not remember what substances they had been taking. Others flatly refused to answer questions - one because there were "too many people in the court". Juventus used CAS's ruling as part of its efforts to get its doctor cleared on appeal.
The head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Dick Pound, said last year Juventus should be stripped of the titles it won when players received substances in the mid-90s. Pound said he expected a "strong signal" from Italian sporting authorities.
"There are very few innocent people here. The players knew and the managers did too," he said.
