Reduced punishment for Serie A Four
Juve demotion confirmed
Quinn appoints Quinn to top Black Cats post
—– Following the appeal to the Italian Football Federation by the four Serie A implicated in the Italy match-fixing scandal, the punishments are significantly reduced.
Juventus are still to be relegated to Serie B, but their 30-point deduction is reduced to 17 points. The decision to strip Juve of their last two Serie A titles and the five-year bans for former club executives Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudo stand. The Turin club are also fined 120,000 Euros.
Lazio and Fiorentina are reinstated to Serie A. However, their points deduction is increased from seven to 11 for Lazio and 12 to 19 for Fiorentina.
AC Milan stay in Serie A with their penalty cut from 15 points to eight but, having been banned from European competition, they have been allowed to play in the Champions League qualifying rounds this season.
New punishments will see Juventus and Fiorentina play their first three home games of the 2006-07 season at neutral grounds. Lazio were given a two-match stadium ban and Milan one match.
Due to Fiorentina and Lazio staying up, Lecce and Treviso - the bottom two clubs in Serie A last season - will not now be reinstated to the top division.
Messina, who finished 18th, stay up in Juventus’ place although they will now fear Juve’s next appeal.
Despite the watered down penalties, all four clubs have indicated that they will consider civil action.
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—– Niall Quinn - Sunderland’s former centre-forward who is the Wearside club’s chairman-in-waiting - is announced as the Black Cats’ new manager in succession to Mick McCarthy.
The ex-Republic of Ireland striker’s consortium bought a controlling stake earlier in the month and Quinn’s first major task was to find a new boss.
Attempts to bring former Celtic boss Martin O’Neill and Bolton Wanderers’ manager Sam Allardyce to the Championship outfit have been thwarted, but a proven top class manager is still in Quinn’s plans: “If it takes three months to get to a point where we can bring in a new manager then great, I will gladly walk away.
“When I was in full flow with the club three months ago, becoming manager is not something I thought I would be doing but it has transpired that way.
“Even though the group who are backing me could not have been more ambitious in trying to attract a world-class manager; what happened is that we decided we would try to attempt the first hurdle because what we have to do is try to stop the slide.”
The 39 year-old who has no previous coaching or managerial experience will be assisted by Bobby Saxton who was No. 2 to former boss Peter Reid at the Stadium of Light and Roker Park.
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July 28th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Niall Quinn was confirmed as chairman of Sunderland on 27 July when his Drumaville consortium completed their takeover of the club.