A Juventus doctor has been given a prison sentence for administering drugs to players during the 1990’s.
Riccardo Agricola was given a 22-month suspended jail sentence by a judge in Turin, six years after allegations were made by former Roma coach Zdenek Zeman.
Club chairman Antonio Giraudo, who along with Agricola had denied the charges, was acquitted.
Zinedine Zidane, Roberto Baggio and Alessandro Del Piero are among the current and former Juventus players who gave evidence at the trial.
Prosecutors had alleged that Juventus players were regularly supplied with drugs, including erythropoietin (EPO), from 1994-98 and requested prison terms of 38 months for Agricola and 25 months for Giraudo.
Defence lawyers argued that there was no evidence players were given banned substances.
Just weeks ago the English FA recently announced that it would be introducing a test for EPO “in the near future” and Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger also expressed concern that some of his overseas players had displayed symptoms of EPO use when they joined the club.
Wenger said at the time: “We have had some players come to us at Arsenal from other clubs abroad and their red blood cell count has been abnormally high. That kind of thing makes you wonder.
“There are clubs who dope their players without the players knowing. The club might say that they were being injected with vitamins and the player would not know that it was something different.”
An FA spokesman indicated their commitment to eradicating the drug, saying: “We will be conducting 1,600 tests in the course of this season.”
