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Reuters, Tuesday, July 25, 2006 4:28 PM
An appeals court took pity on Italy's fallen giants, reducing the sentence of each for their involvement in a match-fixing scandal. Juventus remained the hardest hit after being relegated to Serie B
and docked 17 points instead of 30 from the start of next season. The Scudetto winner also had its titles from last year and the year before stripped, although no new champion had been crowned for
those seasons. Rumors that Lazio and Fiorentina would be reinstated to Serie A proved correct, but their point deductions were augmented to 19 points for Fiorentina and 11 points for Lazio. AC Milan,
the club owned by media mogul and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, came out the happiest: the club had its points reduction scaled back to 8 from 15, and was reinstated to the UEFA
Champions League, with a the added penalty of having to qualify in the third round. Juventus and Fiorentina were both banned from next season's Champions League. Italy's automatic qualifiers for the
tournament will be Inter Milan and Roma; Milan and Chievo Verona will have to qualify out of the third round.
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