Moggi, Giraudo avoid jail nine years after match-fixing scandal
ROME -- Nearly nine years after Italy's biggest soccer scandal, the investigation has been closed with hardly any sentences given.
Former Juventus executives Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudo will not face jail for match-fixing after their prison sentences were eliminated by Italy's highest court, which ruled that the statute of limitations had expired.
After six hours of deliberations on Monday, the Court of Cassation upheld prosecutor Gabriele Mazzotta's recommendations, although the pair were not acquitted.
Moggi avoids a 28-month jail term, while Giraudo escapes 20 months in prison.
At the heart of the 2006 match-fixing scandal, known as Calciopoli, were accusations that Moggi and Giraudo created a network of contacts with Italian football federation officials to influence refereeing assignments and arrange for key players in other teams to be booked ahead of matches with the Turin club.
Juventus was stripped of the 2005 and 2006 Serie A titles for its role in the scandal, and the club was relegated to the second division with a nine-point penalty. The team immediately won promotion back to Serie A.
Moggi was sentenced to 5 years, 4 months in the initial ruling in the case but that had been reduced on appeal, while Giraudo had his sentence cut from 36 months.
In 2011, the Italian football federation extended the five-year bans for Moggi and Giraudo to life terms. Both men deny wrongdoing.
Former referee designator Pierluigi Pairetto and former Italian football federation vice president Innocenzo Mazzini also had their sentences eliminated, while former referees Paolo Bertini and Antonio Dattilo were acquitted.
Another former referee, Massimo De Santis, was the only one not to see his sentence wiped out, and his appeal against his one-year suspended sentence was rejected.
