Tuesday March 1, 2005
The Guardian
Juventus are at risk of being stripped of the trophies they won between 1994 and 1998 after a Turin judge, Giuseppe Casalbore, made public his judgment on the conviction of the club doctor Riccardo Agricola.
Agricola had been found guilty of administering banned substances and given a suspended jail term of one year and 10 months in a trial that ended in Turin last November, six years after the inquiry started.
"Agricola resorted to the use of drugs and substances - some absolutely forbidden such as EPO - to influence results which could not have been achieved with regular training systems," the judgment said.
Someone should have warned our agricultural friend about sending those horse pills out to his Italian cousin "to make the players gallop faster", even though this all happened before we in here got to know him. I hope this is not going to jeopardise our friend's early release from Shrewsbury jail for good behaviour, but I rather fear it will. Anyone here got any inside (pardon the pun) information?
Mike.
