Former Juventus Director Appeals Ban to European Court

Turin, Mar 23 (AP) Nearly 14 years after Italy's biggest soccer scandal, appeals are still ongoing.

Former Juventus director Antonio Giraudo, who was banned from the sport for life following a 2006 match-fixing scandal, submitted an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights on Monday.

According to Italian news agency LaPresse, Giraudo claims that by allowing sports federations to set up disciplinary courts, Italy violated an article of the Convention on Human Rights that grants access to a court established by law and a fair trial.

The appeal also states Giraudo's lawyers were only given seven days to prepare his defense and that jurisdiction was handed to the same body — the Italian soccer federation — that had made the accusations.

At the heart of the scandal, known as Calciopoli, were accusations that Giraudo — and others — created a network of contacts with Italian football federation officials to influence refereeing assignments and arrange for key players on 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 was relegated to the second division with a nine-point penalty. The team immediately won promotion back to Serie A.

Giraudo was initially sentenced to three years in prison but that was reduced on appeal and then eliminated in 2015 by Italy's highest criminal court, which ruled that the statute of limitations expired. AP

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