Rome: The lawyer representing Juventus at the appeals trial in Italy’s match-fixing scandal pleaded for leniency on Sunday, saying that last week’s decision by a sports tribunal to relegate the club to the second division with a 30-point penalty would have “devastating consequences”.

“Just to survive in Serie B next season we estimate that Juventus will have to earn about 80 points ? equivalent to winning 27 of their 40 matches,” Cesare Zaccone told the appeal court’s panel of five judges.

Juventus were one of four clubs from Italy’s top Serie A division found guilty by the tribunal of conspiring with referees and linesmen to rig games during the 2004-05 season.

As well as being sent down to Serie B, the Turin giants were also stripped of their last two Serie A titles.

Zaccone told the court the effects of the sentence were already being felt in the exodus of the club’s leading players.

“The career for a footballer is short and some of our best players are world champions,” he said. “None of them wants to risk two years in Serie B or, worse still, relegation to Serie C1 (Italy’s third division).”

Italy’s World Cup-winning captain Fabio Cannavaro, defenders Gianluca Zambrotta and Lilian Thuram, and Brazilian midfielder Emerson have left since the tribunal announced its guilty verdict last Friday.

Zaccone also asked the court to consider the effects of a heavy sanction on Juventus’s income from sponsorship and TV rights, and the effect on investors, who had bought shares in the club.

Meanwhile, after seven years television rights to Italian matches will be going back to the Lega. (Agencies)