"IS' an absurd story. I have always been correct: on and off the pitch. There is a judge who talks about me, he says inappropriate things, perhaps as a fan. He has something personal with me ”. Hard vent of Antonio Conte, Juventus coach, the day after the appellate ruling upholding his conviction to a 10-month ban in the football betting trial.
According to the first instance judges, the coach was guilty of not reporting the agreements that distorted two matches in the Serie B championship: Novara-Siena and Albinoleffe-Siena. The Federal Court of Justice instead acquitted the Juventus coach "in relation to the indictment relating to the Novara-Siena match", but confirmed the ten-month disqualification on the basis of the omitted complaint for the second match.
“I am the subject of defamatory accusations that want to make me the spot for the football betting scandal – continued the Juventus coach in the press conference -. I am more credible than someone like Carobbio who sold his matches. It's a shame".
Still with regard to his main accuser, Filippo Carobbio, the Juventus coach underlined how the Cremona prosecutors defined him as “a liar. Yet for the federal prosecutor Carobbio, or rather 'Pippo' because he is now meat and pie with the judges, is highly credible. I have never bet in my life. Mr. Carobbio, on the other hand, has been selling matches, teammates and family for three years. Yet Mr. Conte is not very credible: and unlike those who sell matches, I have always been honest".
Now "we come to the third degree of judgement – explained Conte again, who had already announced the appeal to the Tnas del Coni (the National Court of Arbitration for Sport), the last degree of sports justice -. I didn't like anything about this story, zero. Today it happened to me, tomorrow it may happen to another. But with the same name as me, otherwise nobody gives a shit".
As for his job as a coach, the coach said that from now on he will be afraid: "I want to have a camera that monitors my movements, otherwise if I send a player to the stands who knows what could happen".
