Juve ruling, towards the discount. The prosecutor “Penalty of 15 points with little reason”

ROME. Lasting just under three hours, the Juventus match at the Collegio di Garanzia dello Sport at Coni extends into extra time. It ended in front of the five members of the United Sections (the president Gabriella Palmieri Sandulli and the other four section presidents Vito Branca, Attilio Zimatore, Massimo Zaccheo and Dante D’Alessio) with the twist of the assist provided by the three-minute indictment of the sport attorney general Ugo Taucer, theoretically the party closest to the accusation, given the choice of the FIGC not to appear in the proceeding, will only reach a conclusion between today and tomorrow. At seven in the evening, after leaving the Sala delle Fiaccole and adjourning the council chambers to today, the five members of the Board of Guarantee still had to find a balance on the content of the operative part of the sentence to be issued: total acceptance of the Juventus request for inadmissibility due to form and definitive return of the 15 penalty points in the standings, with a consequent rise to third place behind Lazio at an altitude of 59, or referral to the Federal Court of Appeal for a reformulation of the sanction accompanied by an adequate motivation of the sentence and a momentary restitution of the points removed pending the new pronouncement. If in a purely theoretical, but absolutely improbable line, the scenario that everything remains as it is still standing, Juve has left Palazzo H del Coni with the almost certainty of a revision. If total, as requested by his defense team made up of lawyers Maurizio Bellacosa, Nino Paolantonio, Angelo Clarizia and Davide Sangiorgio (defendant also of Andrea Agnelli and Pavel Nedved), accompanied by lawyers Nicola Apa and Flavia Tortorella, respectively representatives of Fabio Paratici and Federico Cherubini, or partial, as unexpectedly invoked by the sports attorney general, will know starting today.

«From the point of view of the behavior of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office – the departure of Ugo Taucer – I have no observations to make. His work was corrected and shared in the judgment by the Court of Appeal. I pronounce myself in favor of rejecting the requests of Juve’s lawyers. On the application of article 4 (sporting disloyalty, ed), however, I fear that there is groundlessness with respect to the points inflicted on the team and that there is a deficiency which I hope will be evaluated in a new judgment». According to the Attorney General of Sport, therefore, the accusatory and investigative system of the Federal Prosecutor holds, but not the sanction imposed by the Federal Court of Appeal: the -15, in fact, would be disproportionate or not sufficiently motivated. Leaving aside the way of inadmissibility and the total and definitive return of points, the path of discounting the current penalty almost seems like the natural outlet in the event that the Collegio di Garanzia dello Sport were to refer the matter to the Federal Court of Appeal. From today Juve can know if, definitively or temporarily, there is a whole other life in the standings, without the ballast of -15, to see the light in the Champions League area again. A journey with a beginning and an end that could coincide: from Napoli in the first leg, the last game before the penalty, to Napoli in the second leg, a possible first challenge faced without distinction between the points won on the field and those in the rankings. —