Full-text indexing – Through this article, you will learn:
Before and after of the case: How many games did the Italian prosecutors and Juventus club officials go through, and what happened? Is all this UEFA's revenge?
How did Juventus' financial fraud spark, and what mistakes did Juventus make?
Where does Juventus' future hold? Is the UEFA Super League plan still feasible now?
From search to first instance
On November 26, 2021, a dark cloud hung over the Italian city of Turin, on this day, prosecutors from Turin searched the headquarters of Juventus FC and their offices in Milan, targeting Juventus' documents related to finances between 2019 and 2021.
As we all know, in the past three years, the Juve operation team led by Palatić has carried out major transfer operations such as the introduction of football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and the exchange of Pjanic and Artur with Barca.
Turin prosecutors suspect a great deal of financial fraud at Juventus over the past three years.
While searching Juventus' headquarters and Milan offices, the Italian financial police also took away transaction records involving about 50 million euros at Juve's training center, as well as investigating Cristiano Ronaldo's official dealings with Juventus.
After that, then Juventus director Kherubini was questioned for nine hours, while CEO Alivabenne was interrogated on the fifth floor of the Ministry of Justice. For a time, Italian football was stormy and rumors were spreading.
Imposing penalties on clubs for financial fraud is nothing special, as on 14 September 2018, three years before the search for Juventus, Serie A side Chievo was deducted three points for financial fraud, including transfer fee fraud.
That season, the team scored only two wins throughout the year and were eventually relegated to the second division.
Compared to the inefficient national judicial system, the Italian sports courts have always been known for their efficiency.
In the Italian sports system, the sports judiciary is independent of the sports administration and can therefore always handle cases independently of any administrative body, and because of the tight nature of sporting events, the sports judiciary is always able to enforce the law extremely quickly.
Therefore, at the end of 2021, many opinion makers believe that Juventus is likely to be punished very quickly.
However, even if the sports court is strong, it must rely on evidence. Due to insufficient evidence against Juventus, Juventus was acquitted in April 2022 at trial. The first phase of this matter has come to an end for the time being.
Case background and debunking conspiracy theories
Due to the raid on Juventus, but eventually acquitted, many fans believe that the incident is an outright conspiracy, a warning and punishment from UEFA against Juventus for participating in the European Super League plan.
Of course, the anger of these fans is understandable, but in the end, this conspiracy theory is actually not reliable, and this matter is really incompatible with UEFA's retaliation against the European Super League.
First of all, we need to know what the charges Juventus are facing.
Juve face two charges.
The first of these is the "fictitious capital gains case", in which the Italian Football Federation prosecutorial authority believes that Juventus "made accounts" by inflating player transfer fees, thereby achieving the purpose of passing the club's financial review. In addition to Juventus, eight clubs are facing the accusation.
And the acquittal in the first instance is also this case. On the one hand, Juve believe that there is no standard to measure the value of players, so it is impossible to conclude that clubs exaggerate player transfer fees; On the other hand, the procuratorial authorities of the Football Association could not provide more strong evidence. So, in the first instance, the court rejected the prosecution's request and acquitted Juve.
Of course, in addition to this, Juventus also faces a charge, that is, the "illegal accounts case".
The Supervisory Authority believes that Juventus players announced a collective abandonment of their salaries in the summer of 2020, but in fact, the salary of up to 90 million euros was actually delayed, and it was not included in the financial report, so it became an illegal account, which involved financial fraud, and the severity of the violation has exceeded the field of sports.
Many fans believe that for football clubs, book fraud is a relatively common thing. However, Juventus is not just a football club, it is also a listed company.
Italian football itself has three listed companies, and with the delisting of Roma last year, only two listed companies remain: Lazio and Juventus.
But because of their special status as a listed company, Lazio and Juventus are not only subject to the supervision of the FA prosecutor's office like other football clubs, but also by the Italian Securities Supervisory Commission at the national level.
For listed companies, financial fraud is a very serious financial violation and is likely to involve criminal offenses.
Perhaps shareholders will understand this better.
And because of Juventus' status as a listed company, its financial fraud error is much more serious than that of other football clubs.
The subject of investigation against this article is not only the Italian sports judiciary, but also the national prosecutor's office and the Securities Regulatory Commission with higher authority.
Moreover, due to the suspected criminal offence, the national prosecution authorities naturally used raids on Juve's headquarters, a method that was impossible for sports prosecutors, and Juventus was also investigated by the prosecution department such as phone tapping and mail interception.
According to local Italian media, the evidence that was insufficient in the first instance was completed by listening to the telephone and mail of Paratic, Kairubini, and Alvabene.
So, we need to stress once again that many people think that this incident is UEFA's revenge against Juve, which is untenable. Because Juventus, as a listed company, has a huge financial fraud of up to 90 million, the Italian Securities Regulatory Commission itself will take severe measures to intervene in the investigation, which is very reasonable.
Other teams are just teams, and even if they have more financial problems than Juventus, they are unlikely to be punished on the same basis as Juventus, because they are not involved in criminal offences.
When the first trial ended in Juve's innocence, the matter did not end there. Seven months later, Juve's top brass resigned en masse under Agnelli's leadership, and in December, new evidence emerged and the case entered a retrial phase.
And we all know the result after the retrial.
Andre's Juventus twist
Since André Agnelli became the club's 25th president in 2010, Juventus has largely gone through three eras.
The first era was from 2010 to 2018, during which Juventus' actual speaker was CEO Marotta, and sporting director Paratich was Marotte's hand-picked assistant.
Marotta is Italy's best sporting manager of the century, and in his eight years at the helm of Juventus, Juventus came out of the shadow of relegation at the phone gate, achieved a record-breaking seventh consecutive Serie A title, smoothly achieved the handover from Conte to Allegri, reached the Champions League final twice, and created a true Juventus dynasty.
This knowledgeable manager who started as a shoe shiner is not just a highly capable individual, but the leader of a large, professional legal and financial team.
Despite criticism that Marotta always likes to bring in veterans and bury the disaster in the team, the fact is that under the pressure of public companies, the old churro who has mastered the letter of the law has successfully helped Juventus achieve a new life with full financial compliance.
During Marotta's years in power, Juventus were never found to have any financial problems by the prosecution.
In the Marotta era, Juventus has always adhered to the traditions of the past, on the one hand, with Italian local players as the core members, the BBC defensive combination, Buffon, Pirlo have all played the real backbone of the team in the Marotta era.
On the other hand, Juventus implements the pragmatism of doing big things with little money, and has signed important players such as Pogba, Llorente and Khedira at a small price through various methods such as front of him.
These players laid the foundation for the glory of Juventus throughout the Marotta era.
However, President Agnelli was unhappy that the team had not been able to win the title twice in the Champions League, and in 2018, Juventus club leadership proposed a transformation plan, hoping to abandon stereotypes and sign superstars, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, who failed to negotiate a contract extension with Real Madrid at the time.
Marotta does not support such a plan because he fears it will put an inexorable financial pressure on the team, which could even drag Juventus to death.
However, this ambitious series of plans is supported by Chairman Andre Agnelli, Vice President Nedved and Sporting Director Paratic. So the end result can only be: Marotta is out.
In 2018, Palatić became the team's general manager, the Marotta era came to an end, and a series of problems were planted at this moment.
The Juventus riot of the Palatić era was constant, and there were multiple deals involving false values.
Due to the overinvestment in the first few years of the Paratici era, after the arrival of the pandemic in 2020 and the reduction of income, Juventus could not make ends meet, so through Paratic, there was a false financial trade with a number of clubs.
According to media disclosures, the transactions that may be involved in counterfeiting at present are: the transaction chain with Atalanta and Tottenham about Romero, Demiral and Kulusevski. Deals with Manchester City about Danilo and Cancelo. deals with Barcelona about Artur and Pjanic and more.
We will know more when the Italian prosecutors release more information.
Moreover, the real fatal mistake of the Palatich era was the delayed payment. Because if it is only through the transfer of players to make false accounts, this behavior is difficult to be proved by the court, which is why Juve can pass the test in the first instance.
However, this delayed payment of wages involved a criminal offense, which, as we mentioned above, triggered an investigation by the public authorities.
Turin prosecutors handed over 14,000 pages of documents involved in the case to the Italian Football Federation prosecutor, who found evidence of the transfer and killed Juve. Without this incident, the FA prosecutor would not have been able to obtain any evidence against Juve.
Of course, although Palatić is the direct perpetrator of a series of financial frauds by Juventus, all the responsibility cannot be placed on him. Because, as the managing director of the team, all his actions must be carried out at the behest of a higher leader.
We can fully assume that Juventus' series of financial frauds were essentially acquiesced by André Agnelli.
As president, André Agnelli bears the main responsibility for the gradual decline of Juve over the years and for this year's East Window incident.
Where is the way?
Now that the matter has come to this, what should Juventus do in the future?
First, Juventus have appealed the penalty. But in reality, the chances of success in Juventus' appeal are very low, because the prosecution already has sufficient evidence against Juventus' two allegations. It is very difficult to overturn these executions.
In addition, after being penalized, Juventus, with only 23 league points left, slipped to 10th place in Serie A as of January 27, 2023, with only 19 games left in the league, but Juventus is 14 points away from Inter Milan, currently fourth-place.
The pressure on Allegri is very high.
Because for a team of Juventus' level, it is unthinkable to have a season without the Champions League.
Allegri also spoke at a press conference after last week's game against Atalanta, arguing that he could reach the Champions League if he scored 71 points.
To reach that goal, Juventus would have to average 2.58 points per game for the rest of their games. Last year's Serie A champions AC Milan averaged just 2.26 points per game.
For Juventus, there is another option.
It is known that the Europa League winner qualifies for next season's Champions League, while Juventus will compete for a place in the knockout stages of the Europa League on February 17 and February 24 through a two-legged match against Ligue 1 side Nantes.
If Juventus can win the Europa League this season, the loss of points will be negligible for Juventus.
Of course, this is not a simple matter, and various teams such as Arsenal, who have been in great form this season, Barcelona, and Manchester United, who are gradually improving, are all potential opponents for Juventus' path to the Europa League.
Of course, there is a premise to all this: to give confidence to the current players and make sure they stay in the winter window.
Solve the near worry, but also the long-term worry.
For Juve, there are two points to consider: the first is whether the European Premier League will continue, which has been insisting on it, and the second is how the new management plans for Juve's future after Andre is grounded.
Following Andrea's resignation last November, Ferrero, who is an accountant by training, was appointed interim chairman, and at the shareholders' meeting on January 18 this year, Ferrero was elected full chairman. Despite the change of leadership, the Agnelli family's mastery and planning of the team may not change.
The first is the European Super League, and Juventus, as one of the three founders, should still stick to the end.
As early as 2021, the three clubs of Real Savin publicly declared that the European Super League had a legal basis, and later submitted an application to the European Supreme Court for approval of the European Super League.
The court's final judgment on the European Super League will most likely be reached this year, and Juventus will most likely hold out at least until after the court's judgment is released, and Barça Real Madrid will be both prosperous and detrimental.
For now, the Agnelli family will definitely stick to their leadership of Juve.
If the good things happen: Juventus end up in the top four or win the Europa League and reach next season's Champions League, then this fine at the beginning of the year will not hurt Juve too much, Juventus will continue to run smoothly and consolidate its Serie A dominance. It may even be delisted in the near future to avoid a repeat of this disaster.
Of course, it will be more difficult for Andrea Agnelli himself to regain power after the end of the lockdown.
For Agnelli Jr., the ideal scenario would of course be for the European Court of Justice to approve the European Premier League plan, in which case the world of football would be completely changed and Andre's own name would go down in football history along with Florentino and Laporta.
There is an old Chinese saying that "blessing is unmatched, and calamity is not alone".
In addition to the above-mentioned good situation, Juventus may also face a worse situation than it is now: due to the evidence found by the Italian prosecutor's office, Juventus is likely to have violated UEFA's "FFP" rules.
However, the current UEFA has not pursued this. If UEFA officially launches an FFP investigation into Juventus in the future, Juventus may be kicked out of continental competitions. If so, then Juve's nightmare will come.
As for what the future holds for Juve, it is a complex matter for multiple departments to decide, not either Juventus or either the Italian court alone. And we can only analyze all this as above based on the very little information we have.
But, in any case, all the best wishes to all the Juventus fans in this world.
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