A week to forget for Juventus of Angel Di Maria, Leandro Paredes and Matias Soulé. To the elimination in the semifinals of the Europa League against Sevilla was added on Monday the officialization of the removal of 10 points by the Italian Football Federation, which directly impacts its aspiration to qualify for the Champions League next season and distances the 'Fideo' world champion from the option of renewal, so his future is presumed far from Turin.
The Italian Court of Appeals of Sports Justice revised downwards the initial punishment of 15 points for accounting fraud, but could not let the inconsistencies pass, making Juventus go from 69 to 59 units in the standings, and from second to seventh place, which would give it the qualification to the Conference League.
Thus, it was five points from the 4th place (occupied by AC Milan), the last one that gives access to play the next edition of the Champions League with two dates left. To make matters worse, this Monday he lost at half-time by 2-0 in his visit to Empoli.
These ten penalty points must be deducted "in the current season", according to the ruling published by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC).
The court of appeal was somewhat more lenient than the attorney general, who on Monday morning had asked for an eleven-point penalty.
The most successful club in Italian football was sanctioned on January 20 with a fifteen-point deduction for having artificially reduced its losses by making capital gains judged overvalued in the sale of some players between 2018 and 2021.
In April, Juve did not achieve the outright annulment of the sanction, but it did convince the judges of the College of Guarantees, the highest instance of sports justice in Italy and dependent on the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), to return the case to the FIGC appeal court to "renew its assessment" on it.
This college did confirm "a voluntary and repeated alteration of the accounting deeds" by Juventus, although it had suspended the sanction until the clarification of the individual responsibilities of some former leaders of the club, such as former vice president Pavel Nedved, who in this last hearing has been acquitted.
The sanctions for three other leaders were confirmed in April: two and a half years of suspension against former sporting director Fabio Paratici, who left Tottenham upon learning of the sanction, two years for former president Andrea Agnelli and 16 months against the current sporting director, Federico Cherubini.
But the story is not over yet, as Juventus can still appeal the sentence again, so the final decision could be known beyond the current season, which ends on June 4.
Juventus' statement
In a statement made public after the decision was announced, Juventus said it "reserves the right" to appeal to the College of Guarantees.
The legal problems for Juventus do not end in this case, since the FIGC has yet to decide whether to sanction, with a fine or with the removal of points, the club for another alleged illegality: having deferred the payment of the salaries of its players during the covid pandemic, with the aim also of artificially reducing its losses in annual financial balances.
The decision on this case, however, should not be known before next September.
These legal proceedings led Agnelli to resign as president of Juventus at the end of last November.
The future is complicated for Juventus, since UEFA also investigates him for "alleged accounting irregularities", forcing the entity to undergo a financial adjustment plan in three years to respect the financial 'fair-play'.
With information from AFP
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