Juventus, investigations into salary maneuvers and “opaque” partnerships closed

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The power of attorney of Figc notified Juventus of the closure of the investigation into the so-called ‘salary, partnership and agent maneuvers’ for which an extension had been requested a few weeks ago. In the deed, as reported by Ansa, the federal prosecutor Giuseppe Chine contested the violation of the principle of sporting loyalty by the Juventus club (article 4.1). Dispute similar to that of the capital gains trend, on which the judgment of legitimacy of the Coni Guarantee Board on the 15-point penalty imposed on the Juventus club is expected on 19 April. On the new strands the Juventus he now has 2 weeks to present his counterarguments.

Opaque partnerships

Already in the sporting sentence issued on the basis of the documents of the Prisma investigation by the Turin prosecutor’s office, the Federal Court established that the top management of Juve systematically planned the achievement of capital gains by selling players for the sole purpose of adjusting the accounts, thus altering the accounting results and violating the principles of sporting fairness. In the file Prism 85% of the disputed transactions concern player exchanges – for a value of 150 million – carried out in the seasons from 2019 to 2021.

Chiné’s proposal

It was no coincidence that the federal prosecutor Chinè had proposed to revoke the previous filing and to impose sanctions and fines on 8 other companies (Sampdoria, Pro Vercelli, Genoa, Parma, Pisa, Empoli, Novara and Pescara). In the Federal Court ruling, however, these companies were acquitted (as previously decreed in July 2022).

However, the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office identified a list of companies with which the Juventus club allegedly had “opaque partnerships”. Serie A teams such as Sassuolo, Atalanta, Udinese, Sampdoria, Empoli and Monza are mentioned, but also operations conducted with teams such as Parma, Pisa, Cosenza and Pescara, or foreign realities such as Lugano, Basel and Sion. The investigation by the attorney Chinè focused on these “collaborations” in order to bring out the fraud in the pursuit of undue accounting benefits in both managers involved in the exchanges.

The timing of the sanctions

In particular, on the positions of 6 clubs (Sampdoria, Atalanta, Sassuolo, Udinese, Bologna and Cagliari) which have negotiated, signed or in any case agreed «confidential agreements in transfer market transactions without filing federal forms and/or filing documents containing agreements other than those concluded» the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Turin also forwarded the documents to the local Public Prosecutor’s Offices, some of which have opened ad hoc files.