The FIGC yesterday confirmed the quintet - Livorno's Balleri, brothers Emanuele and Antonio Filippini, and Alessandro Grandoni, and Atalanta captain Gian Paolo Bellini - and both clubs would face investigation.

The games in question are last season's Serie A clashes between the pair with the first in December ending 1-1, while the return fixture in May resulted in a 3-2 victory for Atalanta.

Today, the 39-year-old Balleri, who now plays for Serie C2 side Como, released a statement through his lawyer in which he professed his innocence.

"With the rigour and the determination of an honest person wrongly accused, I will face the hearing before the sporting justice bodies," it read.

"I have never committed any disloyal or, worse still, illegal act in the 25 years of my career and I am deeply angered by these accusations."

These fresh accusations of match fixing come two years after the events of Calciopoli shocked the sporting world.

The 2006 scandal saw Juventus stripped of the title and relegated to Serie B, while AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina were also punished.