Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina relegated to Serie B
The Italian sports tribunal investigating the match-fixing scandal involving several high profile Serie A clubs has ruled that Juventus, Fiorentina and Lazio will play next season in Serie B, while AC Milan will get to remain in Serie A, but at a heavy(ish) price.
Juventus has been hit the hardest: they have been stripped off their last two titles they won in 2004/05 and 2005/06 and will be forced to start their campaign in Serie B next year from minus 30 points. Fiorentina will start from -12 and Lazio from -7. Milan were lucky not to be relegated as well: they will stay in Serie A, although their points from last season have been reduced by 44, meaning they won’t play in Europe, they will start their campaign next year from -15.
This means that Inter, Roma, Chievo and Palermo will play in next year’s Champions’ League (the first two qualify directly), while Lecce, Messina and Treviso get another chance at playing in Serie A (they had been relegated at the end of the last season).
All in all, Milan should be extremely happy that they have been allowed to stay in Serie A: the prosecutors had originally requested that they be relegated too…Juventus should consider themselves lucky too, as the prosecutors’ original request was that they’d be relegated to Serie C… In Serie B and with 30 points penalisation, they may not get promoted back to Serie A for a while, which will make the next 1-2 years very interesting (serves them right!).
