Prosecutors call for indictment of Juventus board

 TURIN – Prosecutors in Piedmont described Juventus football club’s ‘salary manoeuvres’ in 2020 and 2021 as clearly unlawful and called for the indictment of the board of directors, judicial sources said. 

 The preliminary investigation judge Ludovico Morello explained that the question of artificial capital gains could have happened in “good faith”, but that the ‘salary manoeuvres’ on the other hand were “certainly illegal and that serious evidence of this has been shared with the Public Prosecutor.”

 Juventus have been the subject of investigations since 2019 under allegations of market manipulation, artificial capital gains and false accounting.

 The so-called ‘salary manoeuvres’ concern the wages of 23 players during the COVID pandemic, which the club stated were reduced for four months. Meanwhile, investigators claimed that there was strong evidence of the reduced payments lasting only one month. 

 The recent news came several days after the entire Juventus board of directors announced their resignation, despite the club denying any wrongdoing. 

 At the end of a dramatic meeting at the Juventus Training Centre on Monday, it had been decided that the board of directors would be changed in light of the Turin Prosecutor’s inquiry. Maurizio Scanavino was named as the company’s new general manager.

 The move involved the departure of current chairman Andrea Agnelli, vice-chairman Pavel Nedved, and chief executive officer Maurizio Arrivabene, as well as every other member of the board of directors. These three were called to face trial by the prosecutors in Turin, along with ex-sporting director Fabio Paratici.    

 Following in the footsteps of his father, uncle and grandfather, in 2010 Andrea Agnelli became the fourth member of his family to assume control of the Turin based club. The 46 year-old oversaw a dominant period for Juventus in the Serie A, during which the team won a record nine scudetti in a row. However, at the same time the club was suffering record financial losses, with the greatest single season deficit being 254 million euros last year. 

 On Thursday, the European footballing body UEFA opened its own investigation into the alleged financial misconduct of the Turin-based club.

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