ITALIAN football faced one of the biggest scandals in its scarred history yesterday, after a Turin judge found the Juventus doctor, Riccardo Agricola, guilty of administering banned drugs to some of the world’s leading players during the 1990s. Agricola received a 22-month prison sentence but Antonio Giraudo, the director of the Turin club, who was charged with the same offence, was acquitted.

Agricola’s conviction was the result of a six-year investigation by Raffaele Guariniello, the public prosecutor, who accused the 27-times Italian champions of systematically doping players between 1994 and 1998, one of the most successful periods in their history.

During those years Juventus won three Serie A titles as well as the 1996 Champions League. Clubs that finished runners-up in those competitions could go to court claiming to be the true winners.

Juventus tried to limit the damage yesterday. Paolo Trofino, their lawyer, said that Agricola “was condemned for what was the weak point of the prosecution’s charges, the administration of erythropoietin (EPO). The sentence will be difficult to get through appeal.”

Many of the club’s present and former players had appeared as witnesses, including Zinedine Zidane, Roberto Baggio, Alessandro Del Piero and Gianluca Vialli. All denied taking drugs, though the verdict will leave a stain on their achievements with the club.

Luigi Chiappero, a defence lawyer, said: “This trial shows that there is a rejection of the use of pharmaceutical products in sport, that people have to play without extra help. We’ll see if this theory is accepted. But it goes against the reality of today.”

Guariniello’s investigation was prompted by comments made in 1998 by Zdenek Zeman, the coach of Lecce, who told L’Espresso magazine that Italian football had to “get out of the pharmacy” and pointed the finger at Juventus.

A search of the Turin club’s training complex revealed 281 different kinds of drugs, including five prohibited anti-inflammatories. During the trial, which started in January 2002, Gianmartino Benzi, professor of pharmacology at Pavia University, said: “Stocks resembled the quantity you would find in a small hospital.”

Last week, Vialli claimed that the trial was a consequence of lax Italian libel laws. He said: “In contrast with England, here anyone can say what they want, with complete immunity. I don’t think anyone believes him (Zeman), but a shadow remains.”

The shadow has grown longer because international football and particularly players in Italy have become contaminated by drugs in recent years.

In 1998, the Acqua Acetosa laboratory, accredited by the International Olympic Committee, admitted that documents relating to dope tests in football had disappeared and the laboratory was closed after police discovered papers stuffed into air-conditioning vents.

At about the same time, it was found that many of the Parma squad had abnormally high haematocrit levels, which meant they had more oxygen-carrying red blood cells, so aiding their stamina. This could have been the result of the players undergoing altitude training in July but could have been caused by taking EPO.

The laboratory reopened in September 2000. That season, nine players in the Italian League were banned for drug offences, including Edgar Davids, of Juventus, for failing a test for nandrolone, the anabolic steroid. Two other Dutch players, Jaap Stam, then with Lazio, and Frank de Boer, then at Barcelona, were also given short bans for nandrolone use.

EPO THE FACTS

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