Ex-Italy under-21 striker banned after probe

MILAN, Nov 28 (Reuters) Former Italy under-21 striker Giuseppe Sculli has been banned for eight months after an investigation into a Serie B game in 2002.

Telephone interceptions involving Sculli discussing the match were published in Italian media and the Football League's disciplinary commission handed down the ban today to the forward who now plays in Serie B with Genoa.

The investigation focused on a second-division match in June 2002 between Sculli's side at the time, Crotone, and Sicilian team Messina. The potential outcome of the match was discussed by Sculli during a series of telephone conversations which were intercepted.

The Football League's disciplinary commission did not find proof of match-fixing but handed Sculli, who later played for Messina, the ban for ''unsporting conduct''.

Four other people investigated by the commission were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Sculli began his career with Juventus but has never made a top-flight appearance for the club having been loaned out to various teams during the past six seasons.

The forward is the grandson of Giuseppe Morabito head of the 'Ndrangheta, the crime group in southern Italy that has taken over the drug smuggling primacy from the Sicilian Mafia.

Morabito was arrested in a police raid in the Calabrian mountains in February 2004.

REUTERS SBA BST0300