Juventus will begin their title defence on Saturday without manager Antonio Conte, after a 10 month ban for failing to report match fixing during the manager’s tenure at Siena was upheld by the Italian Football Federation.
Today, Conte hit back at the charges, lamenting the damage that’s been done to both Juventus and him personally:
“They judged Pippo Carobbio, who they painted as my best friend, as a reliable and credible person, while the Federal Prosecutor has deemed me not credible,” the former midfielder added. “What the Federal Prosecutor said is chilling. I consider a plea bargain blackmail. I’m an innocent person, yet I’m told by my lawyer to plea bargain. It’s embarrassing. They have ruined my credibility in the changing room. Those people who know me know what type of person Antonio Conte is. I’m used to winning on the field of play. It’s all absurd. Everyone needs to understand what has been done to me because it is embarrassing.”
Strong words. Carobbio named names after been charged with match fixing himself. Conte’s lawyers state that when Carobbio was first questioned on January 19th 2012, he did not implicate Conte in the scandal. It was only when brought before a federal court one month later when the former Siena player ‘remembered’ Conte’s words during a team meeting in which he is accused of saying there were ‘agreed results’ with Novara and Albinoleffe.
So the Italian courts have based their findings on Conte off of the accusations of a man who has been found guilty of participating in various match fixing schemes throughout the years. A person who took a plea deal that was contingent on testimony that smeared Conte. Of the 25 men in the dressing room that day in late May 2011, Carobbio is the only person to remember Conte’s vague statement regarding agreed results.
The Juventus boss has one appeal left. This scandal carries the stench of an unfair result. Will the Italian courts continue to take the word of one man over 25 others? At this point, any decision involving match fixing and the Italian court system would not be surprising.
Having followed this whole trial. It is incredible to see the amount ofcontradictions in carobbio’s testimony as well as the focus with which the prosecutor palazzi attacks conte. It is worth noting that palazzi is the same prosecutor involved in calciopoli which 2 years later resulted in evidence against inter that was never brought to light by Palazzi. This does seem like a eitch hunt. I invite everyone to watch conte’s press conference. You see the resolve in his message and that alone leads you to believe he is innocent
It’s completely ridiculous!
If it is true that Conte said something in the dressing room why are the rest of the people who were there (25 of them) not charged with knowledge of match0-fixing as well. Why is it that only ONE person (the person guilty of match fixing) remembers anything? Why is it that Conte was banned for 10 months, a much longer sentence than Carobbi received and he actually fixed a match!
And last but not least, Conte was originally found guilty of knowledge of match fixing for two matches and sentenced to a 10 month suspension. One of those verdicts was overturned (Siena v Atalanta) but the length of the sentence was not reduced.
Witch hunt indeed
Pure idiocy. Juventus would be well within its rights to boycott the entire season. How is it that, other than Serie B teams and players, only Juventus players and employees were targeted?
The Italian sporting justice system represents the pinnacle of corruption and incompetence and worse.
The way they deal with these constant waves of scandal in Italy is absurd. It seems as long as the prosecutors can claim one big scalp then they believe their work is done. Juventus have simply been unfortunate in that, both in 2002 and 2012, the biggest scalp belonged to them as reigning champions. The unfairness and inconsistency of the sentencing process does absolutely nothing to counteract the image of Italian football as corrupt; nor does it do anything to reduce the influence of the criminal syndicates which are the main driving force behind the match fixing itself.