Italian football has been thrown into confusion after Italian police searched the offices of the Italian soccer federation – the FIGC – on Friday and claims of match-fixing have rocked the Italian footballing world.

Prosecutors said four top Serie A clubs - AC Milan, Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina - were all under investigation, with reports that 41 primary figures in the Italian football world are all involved in an ever-widening corruption scandal that comes less than a month before the Azzurri star in the World Cup Finals in Germany.

It has also been reported that Italy head coach Marcello Lippi has also been coerced by the Juventus general director Luciano Moggi into making squad decisions for the Azzurri during their qualification for the Finals in Germany.

“It is terrible,” said former Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, whose business empire includes one of the teams under investigation, AC Milan.

Gianni Rivera, former AC Milan player and European Footballer of the Year in 1969, also widely considered to be one of the best players in the history of the Italian game, said: "A tsunami has struck the world of Italian football, lets hope that this leaves the good part of the sport intact, and washes away the corruption and rot!”

The Federation confirmed that Carabinieri police officers were searching its Rome offices and also paid a visit to the offices of the Italian Refereeing Association, the AIA.

Police seized documents related to an investigation by Naples prosecutors concerning the 2004-05 season.

The association of Italian referees was being searched in connection with accusations that the director general of Juventus tried to influence the choice of match officials for games.

Juventus, the current Serie A champions, are owned by the Agnelli family of automotive tycoons. Due to the news, trading in Juventus shares was briefly suspended on the Milan stock exchange after the share price dropped 13 percent shortly after the market opened.

Shockingly, the entire Juventus board resigned on Thursday, including managing director Antonio Giraudo and general director Luciano Moggi, who is under investigation in Rome and Naples for allegedly trying to influence referee assignments.

The other Juventus board members to resign were: Massimo De Santis, Pasquale Rodomonti, Paolo Bertini, Paolo Dondarini, Gianluca Rocchi, Domenico Messina, Marco Gabriele, Salvatore Racalbuto and Paolo Tagliavento.

The resignations came three days before the final day of the season, with Juventus needing only one point to clinch the second straight league title and the Turin giants’ 29th Scudetto.

Naples prosecutor Giovandomenico Lepore said investigators were looking into 20 games from the 2004-05 season all but one in the top league, Serie A.

Another prosecutor for Naples, Giuseppe Narducci confirmed at a news conference that four Serie A clubs were being investigated Juventus, Lazio, AC Milan and Fiorentina.

Lepore said 41 people had been ordered to appear for questioning for suspected criminal association. Two of them are police officers who allegedly revealed information of the probe, and two other police officers suspected of embezzlement, Lepore said. The rest were being investigated for alleged sports fraud, the prosecutor said.

Club officials, Federation officials, the officials who assign referees to games, certain referees and a journalist are among those under investigation, said Lepore.

Also, prosecutor Pietro Errade told state TV that investigators in Parma were looking into a suspected betting scandal involving games that were allegedly fixed.

Italian news reports said Moggi would be questioned in Rome next week. Last week, UEFA and Italian league officials said they had opened inquiries into allegations that Moggi had arranged to have certain referees assigned to Juventus games.

UEFA also said it had reprimanded Italian refereeing official Pierluigi Pairetto for disclosing confidential information. According to the transcripts of phone intercepts by Turin prosecutors, Pairetto disclosed the names of referees to Moggi.

The problems for the Italian Federation have now intensified after reports on Friday from Italy’s Gazzetta Dello Sport, saying that Italy head coach Marcello Lippi had been influenced by Juventus’ General Director Moggi as to which players the Azzurri head coach would field in one of their international matches.

It has been said that the President of the Italian Football Federation, Franco Carraro spoke to Moggi, so that Moggi could influence Lippi into choosing certain players for international matches over others.

It is said that a telephone call on October 12, 2004, between Carraro and Moggi was taped, in which Carraro asked the Juventus chief to influence Lippi’s decision in the choice of of certain players over others, and to ensure that both Roma’s Totti and AC Milan’s Gilardino would be chosen to represent the Azzurri in the match between Italy and Belarus the following day.

The FIGC, who are yet to name a successor to president Franco Carraro, who resigned earlier this week following initial reports of the scandal, is also conducting its own investigation into the matter.

The matches that are currently under investigation are as follows (dates in brackets):

Reggina-Juventus 2-1 (6-11-04)
Lecce-Juventus 0-1 (14-11-04)
Juventus-Lazio 2-1 (5-12-04)
Fiorentina-Bologna 1-0 (5-12-04)
Bologna-Juventus 0-1 (12-12-04)
Juventus-Udinese 2-1 (13-2-05)
Roma-Juventus 1-2 (5-3-05)
Inter-Fiorentina 3-2 (20-3-05)
Fiorentina-Juventus 3-3 (9-4-05)
Chievo-Lazio 0-1 (20-2-05)
Lazio-Parma 2-0 (27-2-05)
Bologna-Lazio 1-2 (17-4-05)
Siena-Milan 2-1 (17-4-05)
Lazio-Fiorentina 1-1 (22-5-05)
Chievo-Fiorentina 1-2 (8-5-05)
Lecce-Parma 3-3 (29-5-05)
Livorno-Siena 3-6 (8-5-05)
Milan-Brescia 1-1 (10-4-05)
Milan-Chievo 1-0 (24-4-05)
Arezzo-Salernitana 2-0 (29-5-05).