Juventus coach Antonio Conte banned over fixing scandal

Rome: Juventus coach Antonio Conte was on Friday banned for 10 months by a disciplinary commission investigating the “Calcioscommesse” match-fixing scandal, according to the Italian news agency Ansa.

Conte was accused of failing to disclose his knowledge of two fixed matches when he worked at Siena football club during the 2010-11 season.

Prosecutors last week requested a 15-month ban for the Juventus coach and his deputy Angelo Alessio for not alerting football’s authorities to irregularities in the second tier Serie B games between Novara and AlbinoLeffe.

Alessio was suspended for eight months.

But Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci, hauled before the tribunal over a match against Udinese in May 2010 when he was playing for Bari, was cleared. Prosecutors had previously requested a three-and-a-half year ban for the Italy international.

Bonucci, 25, joined Juventus in 2010 and in April extended his contract at the Turin club until 2017. He began his career at Inter Milan and played for Treviso and Pisa before moving to Bari.

He was a member of the Italy side that lost in the final of Euro 2012 to Spain.

His Juventus team-mate, Simone Pepe, accused of having failed to notify the authorities about the same match, was also cleared.

The “Calcioscommesse” or football betting scandal has rocked Italian football and cast a shadow over Italy’s preparations for the European championships in Poland and Ukraine when police raided the team’s training camp.

The investigation centres on a number of players suspected of having been targeted by illegal betting syndicates to fix matches and led to a number of enquiries and arrests of players, including Lazio captain Stefano Mauri.

The wave of arrests over the last year came six years after the “Calciopoli” match-fixing scandal, which saw Juventus stripped of two Serie A titles for trying to influence referee appointments.