ROME (AP) – The sports trial in Italy’s soccer scandal wrapped up Friday as the seven judges retired to deliberate on the fate of four top soccer clubs facing demotion to lower divisions on match-fixing charges.

Lead judge Cesare Ruperto said it could take from three to 15 days for verdicts.

Prosecutors are seeking demotion for Juventus to Serie C – the third division- or lower; and for AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio to be relegated to Serie B. They are also seeking to strip Juventus, the club at the center of the scandal, of the league titles it won in the past two seasons.

Twenty-five soccer officials – including referees – also face charges of match-fixing and disloyalty at the tribunal set up by the Italian soccer federation at the Olympic stadium. The officials could be banned from holding jobs in soccer.

Ruperto dismissed the claim that summary justice would be handed down in the worst scandal in Italian soccer history.

“Some say that the sentence has already been written,” Ruperto told the lawyers and prosecutors before closing the trial. “If that is so we invite them to hand it over, to save us some work.”

In the final session, a lawyer for former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi defended the man at the center of the scandal.

Moggi and former Juventus chief executive Antonio Giraudo are accused of creating a network of contacts with federation officials to influence refereeing assignments and get players booked. The two resigned in May, along with the club’s entire board.

Moggi, who defended himself in a TV interview last week, never showed up at the trial and his lawyer Paolo Trofino told the tribunal Friday that it was to avoid “further stress.”

Trofino asked the judges to throw out the charges on technical grounds, arguing that Moggi could not be subject to a sports tribunal as he had resigned and was no longer employed in soccer. He also said the sports trial should have been suspended, pending the result of criminal investigations into the scandal.

A similar request was already rejected at the start of the trial. The judges said they will rule on this repeated request when they issue their final verdict.

Prosecutors in Naples, Rome, Parma and Turin are conducting separate criminal probes into sports fraud, illegal betting and false bookkeeping – but any indictments could take months to be issued.

Lawyers for Juventus have acknowledged that contacting refereeing officials was unsportsmanlike – but deny match-fixing. They say that demotion to the second division would be an “acceptable” sanction.

Also on trial is former federation president Franco Carraro – who resigned in May – plus Milan vice president Adriano Galliani, Fiorentina owner Diego Della Valle and Lazio President Claudio Lotito.

These officials and clubs have denied any wrongdoing and asked the charges to be dismissed.

The soccer federation had initially said a verdict would come before the World Cup final on Sunday, pitting Italy against France. But the slow pace of the trial has shelved that timetable.

Appeals would have to be heard by the end of July – the deadline for deciding European competitions.

AP-ES-07-07-06 1511EDT