Italian police issued nine arrest warrants today for a suspected market- rigging and extortion scam which they said inflated the shares of top league soccer club Lazio.
One of the arrest warrants was for Giorgio Chinaglia, a former Italy striker and ex-Lazio chairman who was also a star player for the New York Cosmos in the 1970s.
Mr Chinaglia, who led Lazio to their first-ever Serie A title in 1974, told Italian TV by telephone from his home in the United States he was innocent.
"This has come out of the blue. I've never been involved in extortion," he told SKY Italia.
The police said in a statement they had investigated a 34 per cent jump in the value of Lazio shares earlier this year after rumours that a foreign company was bidding for the club.
Rome prosecutors in March launched an investigation into Mr Chinaglia, who they suspected of claiming to represent a Hungarian drugs company that wanted to buy a controlling stake in the club, one of the judicial sources said.
At the end of March, Hungary's Richter Gedeon Rt denied it was interested in buying into the club.
"The warrants regard communications, which lacked any basis in fact, which were circulated in the early months of this year by a few individuals about how a foreign group was interested in buying a controlling stake in the club," the police statement said.
Five of the arrest warrants were for market-rigging and the other four were for fans who police believe tried to intimidate Lazio Chairman Claudio Lotito into selling the club.
All have been arrested except for Mr Chinaglia and one other.
Mr Chinaglia did not comment directly on his role in the matter, but said: "I have nothing to prove because I haven't done anything."
"Chairman Lotito never wanted to talk with the Hungarian group interested in buying the team, and if someone doesn't want to sell, that's the end of it, let it go," he said.
Lazio was one of five Serie A clubs prosecuted by a sporting tribunal in the summer in a match-rigging scandal.
The club was did not make anyone available for comment.