D-day for Veron over passport row

Juan Sebastian Veron will find out today if he is to be summoned to appear before a criminal court accused of conspiring to forge a passport.

The false document enabled Veron to play for Lazio when they were coached by Sven-Goran Eriksson and he was a key player in the team that won the Italian title three years ago.

However, Chelsea midfielder Veron was one of 20 players caught up in a scandal two years in which bogus passports helped clubs to register stars as Europeans, thereby beating a ban on the number of non-EU players they could field. Today's case in Rome will hear how a birth certificate in the name of Giuseppe Porcella was used to obtain Veron's Italian passport.

The certificate was later proved to be fake and the man named on it never existed.