Italy keeper Buffon to meet gambling investigators

MILAN, May 24: Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, preparing for next month's World Cup finals, will speak to investigators today as part of a probe into soccer gambling.

Buffon will leave Italy's training camp in Florence to travel to Parma where prosecutors have opened their investigation.

''I will accompany Buffon to Parma where he has been requested to give a testimony. Gigi will say what he has to say and then I will bring him back to the training camp,'' Italy team manager Gigi Riva told the Italian news agency ANSA.

The Juventus goalkeeper has denied any wrongdoing.

After volunteering to give a statement to Turin magistrates earlier this month, Buffon said that any bets he made were on foreign games at a time when such bets did not break Italy's strict regulations on gambling.

Buffon is not under investigation and will meet prosecutors as a 'person who may be informed of the facts'.

Last week the Italian Football Federation said they saw no reason why Buffon should not be included in Marcello Lippi's 23-man squad for the World Cup which starts on June 9.

The Parma investigation is not connected to the widespread probe by Rome and Naples magistrates into allegations of match-fixing.

REUTERS