Juventus have relived their darkest period and the Italian Football Court of Appeal has handed down a very harsh penalty of 15 points in the current Serie A championship in the event of capital gains. The Turin club altered its accounts through accounting tricks that attributed a higher than market value to players it traded with other clubs. So the capital gains were fictitious and fraudulent. For this reason, several managers have been sanctioned, including the club’s president until a few weeks ago, Andrea Agnelli.
The Turin club, along with other clubs such as Napoli, have been accused of increasing the market value of players in order to generate more income through transfers, thereby generating unrealistic capital gains. The tax break applied to 22 appearances allowed the club to generate notional capital gains in FY20/21 and in quarter 2021. In this way, it was able to cut losses, not recapitalize and, on the side, strengthen the team with signings such as Cristiano Ronaldo.
One of the most important operations was carried out with FC Barcelona and consisted in exchanging Pjanic for Brazilian Arthur, which also served to balance the Catalan club’s accounts. Another move studied is Cancelo’s swap for Danilo at Manchester City, which gave the Turiners a capital gain of around €30m. However, the operations were also carried out with Italian clubs. In 2021, for example, Nicolò Rovella switched from Genoa to Juventus Turin for 18 million euros. But from the Ligurian club Manolo Portanova and Elia Petrelli came for 10 and 8 million respectively. A game that gave each team a capital gain of 18 million.
La Vecchia Signora was third in the table with 37 points. But the sanction will liquidate any claim to the championship with the stroke of a pen, radically removing it from European standings. In fact, they will now have 22 points and sit 11th with Bologna and Empoli.
In addition to sanctions for the club, there are also penalties for the managers. The court has imposed a two-and-a-half-year ban on sporting director Fabio Paratici (now with Tottenham); two years for former president Andrea Agnelli and eight months for Pavel Nedved, the club’s manager. Juventus have 30 days to appeal to the Italian Olympic Committee. But the sanction cannot be reduced, only lifted or confirmed. This practice has become widespread in European football recently. But so far only Italy has investigated and sanctioned it.
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