Six pages in which the word Juventus does not appear even once.
Here is the 'secret document' which until now has remained suspended like a sword of Damocles over the sporting process of capital gains: no reference to the black and white club, no date indicating the opening of a formal investigation but, at most, a generic reminder of the need to proceed "where sufficient elements emerge".
As a result of a decision by the Council of State, today the FIGC had to deliver to the lawyers of Federico Cherubini, a former Juventus manager, the note (which has so far remained confidential) that the federal prosecutor sent to Covisoc on 14 April 2021. A step - decided by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court at the request of the Juventus managers,
and today confirmed by the State Council with no to the suspension requested by the Football Federation - which the fans had hailed as a small victory on the eve of the judgment of the Coni Guarantee Board on the confirmation or otherwise of -15 in the standings.
In reality, reading the document seems to suggest that from a technical point of view little or nothing will change: Juventus are not mentioned and it is difficult to identify between the lines the 'notitia Crimilis', the cue that was supposed to oblige the federal prosecutor to open the dossier.
In short, the timing of the trial would have been respected.
Document '1440/21' (which the FIGC has never included in the capital gains file, not considering it an investigative act, of which l) is a response to a request for clarification on the financial statements of the football teams that Covisoc forwarded on 31 March previous.
On 7 April it was discussed in a working table.
The federal prosecutor explained to the Control Commission what were the criteria followed by the sports justice in the matter of capital gains, illustrating two old proceedings: those on the exchange of players between Chievo and Cesena and between Perugia and Atalanta.
At the end, however, there is the poisonous part: the federal 007s, in compliance with the jurisprudence, enter into action "where sufficient elements emerge to corroborate the need to investigate cases that reasonably lead to believe the existence of exchange operations in terms of systematically, not just an episodic operation, aimed at overestimating the balance sheet data".
Capital gains, in short, are prosecutable when they are continuous and systematic.
And it is the criterion applied by the Federal Court of
appeal to penalize Juventus.
However, Juventus' lawyers will now have the opportunity to examine the document and assess whether they have room for manoeuvre, even if the Council of State has set an examination of the merits of the FIGC's request for 23 March, which could be accepted.
