In a sentence that is certain to reverberate throughout European football, Dr Ricardo Agricola, team doctor to Italy's most famous football team, Juventus, was yesterday convicted of administering prohibited substances to team players and given a 22-month suspended prison sentence by a Turin court.

In the same judgment, club chairman Antonio Giraudo, who along with the team doctor had also been accused of overseeing systematic doping practises, was acquitted. Yesterday's judgment was the latest, but not the last chapter in an investigation and subsequent trial that began in the summer of 1998 when Lecce coach Zdenek Zeman, told Italian weekly L'Espresso that doping practises were widespread in Italian football.

Although a full understanding of yesterday's sentence will not be possible until Judge Giuseppe Casalbore, releases his "motivazioni" or judge's opinion, in three months, Dr Agricola's conviction has obvious and immediate implications. For a start, the guilty verdict implies that Judge Casalbore has upheld the prosecution's case - namely that, via their team doctor, Juventus were guilty of systematic doping practises including the use of eritropoietina (EPO) between 1994 and 1998, a period marked by significant success, including one Champions League and three Serie A titles.

Charged with having violated a 1989 law on "sporting fraud", Dr Agricola has been found guilty not only of committing fraudulent acts "intended to alter the results of sporting competitions" but also of having administered pharmaceutical products that might have endangered footballers' health. The Turin court would appear to have upheld the prosecution's accusation that the Juventus team doctor "doped" Juventus players not only by the use of EPO but also by the "off-label" use of legitimate medicines, normally used for patients with psychological problems or recovering from brain surgery, but in this case administered to healthy young athletes.

Commenting on yesterday's judgment, state prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello said: "I'm satisfied with the sentence, it is just what I expected. I think this is an important and a balanced judgment".

In sharp contrast, neither chairman Giraudo nor the Juventus legal team appeared to be disheartened by yesterday's verdict with Giraudo expressing the view that Dr Agricola would be acquitted in the appeals court. Senior defence lawyer Luigi Chiappero said: "I'm satisfied that Giraudo has been acquitted but we will continue to fight to clear Dr Agricola's name, certain of our just case. We will now take this to the appeals court where there are three judges, and let's hope that six eyes see better than two.

"The fact that Giraudo was acquitted underlines the weakness of the prosecution's case because if it was really true that the club has resorted to doping, then it is unthinkable that everyone (in the club) didn't know about it"

For the time being, neither the Italian Football Federation nor CONI, the umbrella ruling body in Italian sport, will be taking any action. Both bodies yesterday issued statements reserving the right to inform the relevant international sports bodies such as UEFA, FIFA, the IOC and WADA (World Anti-Doping Authority) of the court's ruling but only after they have fully evaluated the "judge's opinion" in three months time.

Inevitably, not everyone was quite so cautious in their reaction to the sentence with Green Party senator, Fiorello Cortiana, saying: "I hope this conviction calls a halt to the arrogance of those who have opted for a pharmacological shortcut. But I have to say I am also amazed because, unless you are a total hypocrite, it is simply not credible to imagine that Juventus and its club directors did not know about the fraudulent acts of its team doctor."

Yesterday's sentencing was the latest chapter in a judicial process that began on August 28th, 1998 when health inspectors arrived at the Juventus training headquarters, then the old Stadio Communale in Turin, to "requisition" the club's medical records. The health inspectors had been sent in by state prosecutor Guariniello, partly in response to Zeman's comments earlier that summer.

In particular, Zeman pointed an accusatory finger at Juventus, arguing that players such as Alessandro Del Piero and Gianluca Vialli had both made inexplicable physiological progress.

As a result of the findings thrown up not just by the club's medical records but also by its sizeable store of "medicines" (more than 280 different products), Guariniello charged both chairman Giraudo and club doctor Agricola with sporting fraud, with endangering employees' health, with running an illegal pharmacy and with carrying out improper AIDS and testerone tests on the players. Yesterday's ruling acquitted both men of the latter three charges.

The actual "Processo Juve" or Juventus Trial opened in January 2002 and has ever since been the focus of media attention as some of the most famous names in world soccer including Del Piero, Vialli, Roberto Baggio and Zinedine Zidane were all summoned to Turin to testify.

Much of the trial focused on the use of the restorative creatine as well as the use (or misuse) of a wide range of medical products including Liposom, Lidocaina, Xylocaina, Bentelan, Deflan, Flantalin. Depo-medrol, Flebocortid, Tricortin 1000, Samyr, which all feature on the IOC's list of "prohibited substances".

On more than one occasion, Judge Casalbore expressed his frustration with the apparent lack of co-operation from the players, many of whom seemed to have contracted premature but terminal amnesia.

During the trial, the prosecution presented the findings of Prof Eugenio Muller of Milan University who concluded that the club's use of many medical products was "off-label" and thus intended to obtain different therapeutic results from that for which the drugs would normally be used.

Throughout the last six years, Juventus have consistently denied any wrongdoing, arguing that, rather than being aimed at performance enhancement, their medical practices are and were in the best interests of their players' long term health.

Yesterday's verdict would suggest that the Turin court thinks otherwise.