Ronaldo believes Juventus “stole two Scudetti” from Inter and Calciopoli confirmed “something dirty was going on.”
Ronaldo believes Juventus “stole two Scudetti” from Inter and Calciopoli confirmed “something dirty was going on.”
The Brazilian spoke to Sportweek today and came down hard on those years when he narrowly missed out on the Serie A title, above all with a 4-2 defeat to Lazio on May 5 2002.
“Losing a Scudetto on the last day was devastating, but Calciopoli has now shone a new light on those years,” said Il Fenomeno.
“They stole two Scudetti from us in 1998 when they denied us the penalty for Mark Iuliano’s foul on me and in 2002 when it ended like that. In both cases the winning team was Juventus with Luciano Moggi, Antonio Giraudo and Roberto Bettega. The Triade.
“Of course at the time we got the feeling something dirty was going on, but we didn’t have the proof. Calciopoli showed we were right.”
Juventus were stripped of two titles by the Calciopoli investigation in 2006 and demoted to Serie B.
Their directors, above all Moggi, were accused of trying to influence the choice of referees, but they were never charged with sporting fraud or match-fixing.
It is also worth noting that former refereeing designator Paolo Bergamo assured it was common practice for most clubs to phone him to argue for a particular official rather than another, or to complain about decisions that had gone against them – including Inter.
By the time the taped phone calls involving Inter had come to light and were investigated in 2010, the statute of limitations had passed, so no further action could be taken.