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Calciopoli was a scandal of football match fixing in Italy’s top professional leagues, Serie A, and to a lesser extent, Serie B. The scandal was uncovered in May 2006, when a number of telephone interceptions showed relations between team managers and referee organizations during the 2004–05 and 2005–06 seasons, being accused of selecting favourable referees. This implicated league champions Juventus and several other teams including Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina. In July 2006, Juventus were stripped of the 2004–05 title (left unassigned), and was downgraded to last place in the 2005–06 championship (title given to Internazionale) and relegated to Serie B. The scandal first came to light as a consequence of investigations of prosecutors on the Italian football agency GEA World. Transcripts of recorded telephone conversations published in Italian newspapers suggested that, during the 2004–05 season, Juventus general managers Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudo had conversations with several officials of Italian football to influence referee appointments. In one of those conversations Moggi accused Pierluigi Collina and Roberto Rosetti of being “too objective” and asked them to be “punished”. Both referees were among the few referees to emerge unscathed from the scandal.

The name Calciopoli (which could be adapted in English as “Footballgate”, by analogy with the Watergate scandal, and would be literally translated as “Footballville”) was made up by the media by analogy with Tangentopoli (literally “Bribesville”), which is the name that was given to some corruption-based clientelism in Italy during the Mani pulite investigation in the early 1990s—in that case, the neologism was formed by combining the Italian word tangente (“bribe”, from the Latin word tangens which means “to touch” and, in a wider sense, “to be due to”) and the Greek word polis (“city”), originally referring to Milan as the “city of bribes”. On 4 July 2006, the Italian Football Federation’s prosecutor Stefano Palazzi called for all four clubs at the centre of the scandal to be thrown out of Serie A. Palazzi called for Juventus “being excluded from the Serie A Championship and assigned to a lower category to Serie B with 6 points deducted”, while for Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio to be downgraded to last place in the 2005–06 championship and relegation to Serie B. He also asked for point deductions to be imposed for the following season for the clubs (three for Milan and 15 for both Fiorentina and Lazio). The prosecutor also called for Juventus to be stripped of its 2005 title and downgraded to the last place in the 2006 tournament. In the case against Reggina on 13 August, the prosecutor called for Reggina to be demoted to Serie B with a 15-point penalty. On 17 August, Reggina’s punishment was handed down: a 15-point penalty, but no relegation from Serie A. Furthermore, the club was fined the equivalent of €100,000, while the club president Pasquale “Lillo” Foti was fined €30,000 and banned from all football related activities for two-and-a-half years.

The clubs sent down to Serie B were initially expected to have a difficult road back to the top flight. They would have had to finish in the top two of Serie B to be assured of promotion and also had to avoid finishing in the bottom four to avoid being relegated to Serie C1. Juventus, for example, were initially docked 30 points—the equivalent of having ten wins nullified. This made it very likely that they would not return to Serie A until 2008 at the earliest. The point penalty, however, was reduced to nine points, giving Juventus a fighting chance at promotion. They went on to win Serie B in the 2006–07 season to make a swift return to Serie A.

Fiorentina, who were docked 15 points, were expected to struggle in Serie A and faced an outside chance of relegation the following season. However, they finished the 2006–07 season in sixth place, earning a place in the 2007–08 UEFA Cup. The relegation of Juventus also prompted a mass exodus of important players such as Fabio Cannavaro, Lilian Thuram and Zlatan Ibrahimović. Some thirty other Serie A players who participated at the 2006 FIFA World Cup opted to move to other European leagues in the wake of the scandal.

Initially, with Juventus, Fiorentina and Lazio all relegated, Messina, Lecce, and Treviso would have remained in Serie A, despite finishing in the bottom three in the 2005–06 season. After the appeals, only Messina remained in Serie A. Teams promoted from Serie B (Atalanta, Catania and Torino) were unaffected and promoted to Serie A as normal.

Based on the preliminary final league positions, Juventus and Milan would have earned a direct entry into the UEFA Champions League, Internazionale and Fiorentina would have entered the third qualifying round of the Champions League, while Roma, Lazio and Chievo would have been eligible for the UEFA Cup. On 6 June 2006, the FIGC officially withdrew from the 2006 Intertoto Cup, costing Palermo a place in the third round of the competition, citing the fact that the 2005–06 Serie A standings could not be confirmed by the 5 June deadline.

UEFA gave FIGC a 25 July 2006 deadline to confirm the standings or face sanctions in the two larger European competitions (then extended to 26 July). After the appeals, Inter, Roma, Chievo and Milan occupied Italy’s four Champions League places for 2006–07. Inter and Roma received a direct entry into the Champions League, while Chievo and Milan started at the third qualifying round. Milan’s entry was confirmed by UEFA shortly after the appeals process. Milan went on to win the competition. Palermo, Livorno and Parma took the UEFA Cup first-round slots originally given to Roma, Lazio and Chievo.

On 26 July, FIGC declared Inter as the Italian champion for the 2005–06 season.