Rome: Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon was questioned by magistrates on Saturday over alleged betting improprieties as part of a string of scandals that has rocked the nation just weeks before the start of the World Cup.
Buffon, the world's most expensive keeper, voluntarily presented himself for questioning by magistrates in Turin, the home town of his team, Serie A champions Juventus, the club at the eye of a storm that has hit Italy's soccer elite.
The player's lawyer denied his client had broken Italian rules, which ban players from betting on football matches.
"Buffon explained to the magistrates that he had bet on foreign football and other games before autumn of 2005," Luigi Chiappero said, saying he had not placed any bets on soccer since the ban on betting in any league had been in place.
Also on Saturday, the Italian Football Federation withdrew a referee it was planning to send to the World Cup finals, Massimo De Santis, along with two assistant referees, all of whom are under investigation in the probe.
The timing of the scandal, which Italian media have compared to the "Bribesville" political corruption probe which laid waste a generation of Italian politicians in the early 1990s, could hardly be worse for the soccer-mad nation.
On Sunday, Juventus play a match that could secure the Serie A champions the 'scudetto' for the second year running, a glory that will be overshadowed by allegations that its officials sought in the past to influence the choice of referees.
Juve's board of directors resigned en masse on Thursday after newspapers published transcripts of bugged telephone calls in which the team's general manager Luciano Moggi and CEO Antonio Giraudo apparently discussed refereeing appointments with senior football federation officials.
Italy's stockmarket regulator Consob has written to the various magistrates conducting the probes asking if there is any evidence of wrongdoing that might require it to suspend shares.
Two of the clubs whose officials are under investigation are traded on the Milan bourse: Juventus and Lazio.
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On Monday, Marcello Lippi, coach of the national team, has to submit the names of the squad he will be taking to Germany for the June 9-July 9 finals.
Until the scandal broke, Italy were among the favourites to win world soccer's most coveted trophy. Italian media have speculated on whether Buffon's position in the squad is secure.
"Now he has to defend himself, rather than the national team's goal," wrote leading daily Corriere della Sera. Lippi himself, a former Juve coach, has had some telephone conversations tapped but is not under investigation.
The football federation's president Franco Carraro, one of 41 people under investigation by Naples magistrates looking into suspicions of "criminal association" and "sporting fraud", resigned earlier in the week.
Although no one has admitted any guilt, many figures in the sport and in politics have admitted Italian soccer needs to rid itself of some murky elements.
One of those under investigation, businessman Diego Della Valle, owner of the luxury goods brand Tod's and honorary president of Florence club Fiorentina, dismissed accusations against himself but said Italian soccer needed to change.
"Let's get together around a table and rewrite the rules of football," he said, insisting that such a meeting must include high-profile soccer club proprietors such as outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns AC Milan, and Juve's owners, the Agnelli family.
"There needs to be a total clean-up, to clear out what's bad," said Francesco Totti, Italy's star striker, adding that his club AS Roma, which is not under investigation, was "proud to be clean".
Romano Prodi, who is set to be appointed prime minister next week, suggested a political 'commissar' be put in charge of the football federation, something Italy's overarching sports body CONI said would happen at a meeting on Tuesday.
De Santis was one of two Italian referees on world governing body FIFA's list for the World Cup. The other is Roberto Rosetti.
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