Italy Has Been Ruled Out From the Intertoto Cup

The scandal the Italian football is involved in is affecting its future in the European competitions. And it's now official, if UEFA's president showed his doubts concerning this issue not more than a week ago - saying that Italy may not be able to sign in for the next European campaign as clubs are concerned - the president of the Italian Federation, Guido Rossi, has started the process with the Intertoto Cup.

After discussing the matter with FIFA president Sepp Blatter, the new chief in charge of Italian football stated that: "It is not possible to proceed in time for an Italian club to register for the Intertoto Cup. With regards to the Champions League and UEFA Cup, we have dedicated particular attention to the problem of finding a solution that will allow the Italian sides to sign up for the top European competitions".

The announcement comes in the same day that most of the investigation in the "Juve scandal" took place. Some Udinese current and former players - as well as coaches - were interrogated concerning the Juventus - Udinese match on the 13th February 2005. The final score, 2-1, was contested by Udinese officials, since Dino Fava scored a goal that was wrongly disallowed by the referee and Di Natale was stopped from equalizing after the linesman showed offside - even though it was not.

Regarding that match, AS Roma's current coach, Luciano Spaletti, had to answer to the magistrates' questions. "We certainly feel like the injured party here. If you look back at that game then anyone who knows about football, and even a few who don't, will see the kind of errors that were committed", said the president of the Friuli team, Valerio Bertotto.

In the meantime, Francesco Borelli, the man in charge with the results of the investigations, stated that, after several talks with Martino Manfredi - the head of the Italian Refereeing Body - he found out that the balls pulled out from the urn concerning referee appointments were fixed: "We have worked hard and had a few results. We've got an idea on how things went, but now need to see if it's accurate".