Juventus demoted for match-fixing

Famed soccer team Juventus has received the stiffest penalty among the four teams implicated in Italy's match-fixing scandal.

Juventus has been stripped of its last two Serie A championships and demoted to Italy's second division next season as a result of the probe. Lazio and Fiorentina have also been relegated to Serie B, while AC Milan has been permitted to remain in the top division.

An Italian sports tribunal made the ruling Friday in Rome.

Juventus will also start next season with a whopping 30-point penalty, meaning the club will likely remain in Serie B for more than one season.

Lazio received a seven-point penalty, while Fiorentina was penalized 12 points. AC Milan, the fourth club implicated in the probe, was allowed to stay in Serie A, but was slapped with a 15-point penaltyfornext season.

Eachteam has five days to appeal the ruling to a higher sports court.

The announcement came five days after Italy won the World Cup in Germany. Thirteen of the players on Italy's 23-man roster play for the four penalized teams.

Team officials probed

High-ranking Italian soccer officials also received personal punishments.

Franco Carraro, chief of the Italian soccer league and a member of the International Olympic Committee, was banned from soccer for 4½ years. Former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi was issued a five-year suspension.

Moggi and another former Juventus executive were accused of creating a network of contacts with soccer federation officials to help influence referee assignments for their matches.

Officials from AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina were also fingered in the probe.

Juventus, AC Milan and Fiorentina will also lose their spots in next season's Champions League — a tournament that decides the top European club teams. The event is a lucrative revenue source for soccer clubs through prize money, broadcast revenue and gate income.

There is also expected to be a mass exodus and sell-off of star players from the penalized teams to other sides in Serie A and elsewhere in Europe.