An Italian sports tribunal demoted Juventus to Serie B for match-fixing Friday and stripped it of its last two Serie A titles in 2005 and 2006.

A view of supporters outside the Juventus soccer club headquarters following an Italian sports tribunal sentence, in Turin, northern Italy, Friday July 14, 2006. An Italian sports tribunal which wrapped up its work on the Italian soccer scandal Friday, demoted Juventus soccer club to Serie B for match-fixing Friday and stripped it of its last two Serie A titles.[AP]

Lazio and Fiorentina also were demoted to the second division, while AC Milan was spared demotion but was given a 15-point penalty in the top division for next season. AC Milan also had 44 points taken off from its last season total and will not play in European tournaments this season.

The decision came five days after Italy won its fourth World Cup title defeating France in the final in Berlin.

Thirteen of the 23-man Italian squad that won Sunday's World Cup final belong to the four teams hit by the penalties.

Juventus was given a 30-point penalty, meaning it will have to struggle to climb back to the top league. Fiorentina was penalized 12 points and Lazio 7.

Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, one of 25 soccer officials who faced charges of match-fixing and disloyalty, was banned from soccer for five years.

Franco Carraro, who resigned as the head of the Italian soccer league when the scandal broke and is a member of the International Olympic Committee, was banned for 4 1/2 years.

Moggi had been defiant ahead of the verdict.

"I don't feel guilty of anything. We"ll see what comes out," Moggi said in comments aired Thursday night by Sky TG24 television news. "I'm not ashamed."

The sentence for Juve marks the first demotion since its birth in 1897. The Turin-based powerhouse has won 29 league titles _ including the ones stripped by Friday's verdict _ two Champions League titles, four Italian Supercups, two European Supercups and two Intercontinental Cups.

In 2002, Fiorentina was declared bankrupt and forced to play in the fourth division Serie C2. It was promoted on sporting merits into Serie B in 2003 and returned to the top division the following year.

The verdicts can be appealed within five days to a higher sports court.

The sports prosecutors had sought harsher penalties for some of the teams, requesting the demotion of Juventus to third-tier Serie C or lower, and of AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio to Serie B. Prosecutors in Naples, Rome, Parma and Turin are conducting separate criminal probes into sports fraud, illegal betting and false bookkeeping _ but any indictments could take months to be issued.