Juventus «removed» (and put back) from the Uefa site from the Conference League playoffs – Corriere.it

And where is Juve? Taking a look at the UEFA website in the section relating to Conference League yesterday afternoon an absence that was anything but secondary was noted for a long time. Among the five teams that have rightful access to the playoffs that will qualify for the groups of the 2023/24 tournament, because they come from the five main European championships, the black and whites were missing, then put back in the late evening after the case had broken out.

Four of the five boxes already include a name: there are the English of Aston Villa, the Germans of Eintracht Frankfurt, the French of Lille and the Spanish of Osasuna. And for Italy? Nobody. There had to be Massimiliano Allegri’s team, who finished the last Serie A in seventh place, after the 10-point penalty that prevented them from entering the Champions League due to the well-known legal proceedings. Well, Juve were not among the teams already qualified for the round-trip matches scheduled for 24 and 31 August (draw on 7 August) which will guarantee access to the group stage of the Conference for 22 clubs (the other 10 places will come from the Europa League play-offs) and was reinstated at a later stage. The question arises spontaneously: simple oversight or had UEFA already decided on the exclusion of the black and whites and put a patch only after the absence had been noticed?

In fact, Juve’s participation is still sub-judice: an investigation is underway by Nyon, opened on 1 December, into the possible violation of the Financial Fair Play. The proceeding is independent from the Italian ones, closed with the plea bargain at the level of sports justice, but the UEFA control body is verifying whether Juve has committed any irregularities in the path that led it to reach the “Settlement agreement”. which allowed it to pay only a 3.5 million fine instead of 23. In the event of violations, the spectrum of sanctions is wide and ranges from a fine to exclusion from cups. Not to mention the Superlega affair, which could still have an impact even if a step towards the thaw in relations with UEFA came with Juventus’ move to embark on the path of exiting the project, informing Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​its other companies still involved. The Conference League web page remains: simple oversight or something else?