Former Juventus director Luciano Moggi is celebrating after winning a legal battle, as it Wednesday was ruled that ex-Inter President Giacinto Facchetti was “lobbying referees” up to The Calciopoli scandal of 2006.

The Calciopoli saw Juventus demoted to Serie B, while Milan, Lazio, Fiorentina, Reggina, and Arezzo were also penalized, but to a much lesser degree. Moggi was banned from football for life because of his “unjustified and excessive power within Italian football”.

Juventus were stripped of two Serie A titles, but while the 2004-05 Scudetto went unassigned, the 2005-06 edition was handed to Inter – the next club down the standings without a penalty.

Inter was handed the title because they were considered the “clean” and “uncorrupt” team.

However, during the Calciopoli trial in Naples in 2010, the legal team of Moggi released a number of wiretappings showing that Inter had been involved too in the Serie A scandal during 2004 and 2005. Such wiretappings were involving Inter owner Massimo Moratti, then-Inter chairman Giacinto Facchetti and former referee designators Paolo Bergamo and Pierluigi Pairetto, as well as many others Italian clubs not previously mentioned in the scandal.

In 2011 FIGC (Italian Football Federation) chief investigator Stefano Palazzi, accused Inter of committing sporting fraud during the 2004-05 season, saying: “Inter violated the article relative to sporting fraud with regards to the possibility of taking advantages in the standings.”

Thus, according to the findings of the FIGC’s chief investigator, it was Inter, Milan, and Livorno who should have been relegated in 2006 and not Juventus. But, due to the Statute of Limitations, there will be no further punishment.

Moggi was never the less sued by Gianfelice Facchetti, the son of deceased former Inter President Giacinto Facchetti, for defamation after claims the Nerazzurri chief had lobbied referees during the same period.

Thursday the disgraced official Moggi was crowing in his column in Libero newspaper that he won his legal battle with Gianfelice Facchetti, as the judges agreed with the first degree ruling that Inter had been “lobbying referees.”

Moggi noted, “no newspapers covered the news, and yet this sentence is worth as much as the Tribunal in Naples, where at the time of Calciopoli Inter were wilfully left out of the investigation because Major Auricchio explicitly stated to an assistant that he was not interested in Inter.”

The Nerazzurri and specifically Facchetti were also found to have lobbied referees in another FIGC investigation in 2011, but no further action could be taken because the statute of limitations had already expired.

Giacinto Facchetti died in September 2006 after a long illness.