Juventus Receive Official Explanation For Points Penalty And Announce Appeal

The Italian FA have issued a 36-page document explaining the reasons for the 15-point penalty handed to Juventus, while the club have already announced they will launch an appeal against the sanctions.

The entire case centres around an investigation into inflated player transfer fees reported previously in this column which saw authorities look into a number of player transfers, with the belief that the club was registering unrealistic figures as a plusvalenza.

Technically that is the Italian word for “capital gains,” an accounting term for the profit earned on the sale of an asset like stocks, bonds or real estate, usually used to describe the difference between the (higher) selling price and (lower) cost price of a particular asset.

In their statement published on Monday (January 30), the FIGC noted that their ruling was based on “the documentation from the club’s directors, with confessional value and from the relative manuscripts” as well as “further evidence relating to the concealment of documentation or even manipulation of invoices.”

In explaining why Juventus had been punished so severely, the statement continued by saying that Juve “have committed a sporting disciplinary offence, taking into account the seriousness and the repeated and prolonged nature of the violation.

“As far as the sanction is concerned, the Court has taken into account the particular gravity and the repeated and prolonged nature of the violation and the intensity and diffusion of awareness of the situation in the conversations between the managers of FC Juventus S.p.A.

“In the face of a picture of the facts radically different due to the impressive amount of documents received from the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office that highlighted the intentionality underlying the alteration of the transfer operations and the relative values.”

The FIGC statement also condemned the work of former Juve director Fabio Paratici, who now works for Tottenham in the English Premier
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League, believing that he had constantly operated a system of artificial capital gains.”

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Particular reference was made to a number of swap deals Juve made during Paratici’s tenure, with the FIGC singling out exchanges made with clubs including Barcelona, Manchester City and Olimpique Marseille.

Almost immediately afterwards, the Bianconeri issued their response in a statement on their official website which read:

“Juventus Football Club and its legal team have carefully read and will analyse in depth the justifications, recently published, pertaining to the decision of the United Sections of the Federal Court of Appeal.

“It is a document, predictable in terms of content, in light of the heavy decision, but vitiated by obvious illogicalities, motivational deficiencies and unfounded in terms of law, which the Company and individuals will oppose with an appeal to the Guarantee Board at CONI within the set deadlines.

“The validity of Juventus’ reasons will be asserted firmly, albeit with the respect due to the institutions that issued it.”

Yet even taking into account the various appeals still open to Juve, this remains just the beginning of the legal matters surrounding the club, with the Italian government also currently investigating claims that members of the first team squad were paid off the books during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The authority responsible for regulating the Italian securities market, known as CONSOB, discovered that a number of players had signed agreements to reduce their salaries in order to help the club through that extremely difficult period but were allegedly actually given that money “in the black.”

As was detailed in this follow up column, that would mean that the players and the club avoided paying tax on those sums, while the club would have also falsified their books. That would be classified as financial fraud given that Juventus are a publicly traded company with legal obligations to the stock market, any evidence of this would be classified as financial fraud.

That could lead to more sanctions from both a legal and sporting standpoint in the weeks and months ahead.