For Juventus 10 penalty points. What is wrong with the decision of the sports justice

The first to be enraged by what happened to Juventus, to ask for a radical reform of sports justice should not be the past and present managers of Juventus, but those who lead, own and manage the other teams in the Italian championship. And not so much for what the Juventus management did or did not do, but for how i was managedthe trial on capital gains and sanctions against Juventus.

The desire to hasten the judgement, not having given oneself the necessary time for an in-depth study of what happened in the name of the desire for speedy justice, a singular and almost paradoxical desire in a country where it takes three years and almost four and a half years for the three levels of judgment in a criminal trial, has managed to complicate, and quite a lot, both the Juventus championship and that of many other Serie A teams.

What happened in recent months, first the 15-point penalty (after Juve was acquitted on 15 April 2022 in the first trial on alleged capital gains) then the decision to cancel the penalty and then the re-attribution of what had been removed, finally the new sentence, new 10 points down, had a weight in the 2022/2023 season. Players before being footballers are men, what happens off the pitch has an effect on what happens on the pitch. Disorientation, uncertainty, distractions are not quantifiable exactly, but they determine, in one way or another, the performance of the teams.

Juventus’ first guilty verdict was handed down on 20 January. On the 22nd the Bianconeri drew 3-3 against Atalanta, on the 29th they lost 0-2 against Monza, then racked up four wins in a row. Blaze of pride, many wrote. Could it have been different? Was the performance of Juventus players influenced by what happened in the courtrooms of sports justice? We cannot know. There is no right or wrong answer, just uncertainty, just doubt.

On 21 April 2023, Coni’s Sports Guarantee Board referred the verdict on the Juventus capital gains trial to the Federal Court of Appeal, thus canceling the 15 penalty points. In the following ten days, the Bianconeri lost twice (to Napoli in the league, to Inter in the Coppa Italia), before drawing with Bologna in Serie A. Could it have gone differently? There is no answer in this case either. Just as the future cannot be predicted: how will Juve face the last two days against Milan and Udinese? There is no doubt about the professionalism of the players and the coach. But will professionalism be enough?

Napoli won the championship by a wide margin over the second, which could have been Juventus. Atalanta is playing for access to the Europa League, Monza and Bologna have been safe for a long time.

The idea that it could have gone differently came to many. It cannot be said that the championship is distorted, this would be unfair, yet one cannot be sure that some points could have been assigned differently.

The new 10 penalty points then rewrote the ranking once again. And this raises another perplexity. Is it right to penalize Juventus this season? The inflated capital gains relate to the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, certainly they have led to economic advantages in this one as well, but perhaps it was not better to wait to punish Juventus next season (or in the following season if the process had not been closed in time) so as not to determine situations of advantage or disadvantage?

The Premier League, a league that is experiencing a similar situation, with Manchester City under investigation for allegedly committing financial violations between 2013/2014 and 2017/2018, has decided to entrust the verification of the allegations to an independent commission. The three members are deepening the material, they have announced that it will take some time and that the effects of their judgment will not concern the current season, but the next one, or if they need more time, the one still following, in addition to those in which the any violation has been committed.

We could start from here to rethink the Juventus case.