The Old Lady and her old torments.
The Piedmontese club in the white and black tunic has recently seen dark specters of its history reappear.
On Friday, Juventus Turin received 15 penalty points in the league for a dubious transfer case.
A sanction which reminds us that the legal environment is never very far from the sporting aspect in Piedmont.
1996: Doping
From the second half of the 1990s, dirty business surrounded Juve.
In a documentary released in 2004, the Dutch channel NOS claims that the players who played in the 1996 European final against Ajax Amsterdam would have doped with EPO, according to Giuseppe d'Onofrio and Alessandro Donati, two Italian scientists.
At that time, Juventus marched on European football.
Between 1995 and 1998, she accumulated three Italian championship titles, a Champions League (1996), two C1 finals, two Italian Super Cups, an Intercontinental Cup and a European Super Cup.
The supremacy of the Bianconeri is then almost total and it is therefore necessary to wait almost a decade for revelations to come out in the media.
In 2004, several searches led to a trial which condemned the doctor of the Old Lady Riccardo Agricola in the first instance to one year and ten months in prison for sports fraud and administration of drugs dangerous to health.
But some time later, an acquittal was finally pronounced on appeal on the grounds that the law on sports fraud did not include doping at the material time.
In cassation, the prescription is recognized.
2004-2005: Fraud
The following year, Juve again found themselves embroiled in a scandal, this time financial.
The Calciopoli case is born.
After the disclosure in the press of telephone tapping between Luciano Moggi, general manager of the Turin club, and the officials of the arbitration of Serie A, attempts at fraud are brought to light.
Besides Juventus Turin, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina Calcio are involved.
However, only the Old Lady suffers sanctions.
She finds herself demoted to Serie B, before receiving 9 points withdrawn for the 2006-2007 season as well as the cancellation of the titles acquired in 2005 and 2006. All this accompanied by a fine of €80,000.
2020: The Suarez affair
Rather quiet on the judicial level for a big decade, Juventus is talking about it again in 2020. That year, Luis Suarez is a very prominent player and is preparing to leave FC Barcelona in the direction of Atlético de Madrid.
But the management of the Turin club does not hear it that way.
A time close to joining Juve, Suarez therefore moves away, but the Italians decide to try everything for everything.
Officially, the Turinese no longer have the right to hire foreign players because they have reached the imposed quota.
So, in a fit of desperation, they try to naturalize the Uruguayan striker in Italy.
For this, Suarez must pass tests.
Problem, it turns out that these exams are bogus because the player would have received the test questions before taking them.
"The investigation made it possible to understand how, at the beginning of September, the leaders of the Turin club activated themselves, including at the highest institutional level, to "accelerate" the recognition of Italian citizenship for Suarez", indicates then the Perugia public prosecutor's office in charge of the investigation.
Finally, Luis Suarez drops the case and prefers to engage with Atlético.
2022: Aborted Super League and accounts in danger
Last year, Juventus Turin still made headlines by going to the European Court of Justice in the context of arbitration for the Super League project of which it is one of the main defenders.
UEFA had indeed initiated proceedings in particular against Juventus.
But it will be necessary to wait until early 2023 for the European Court of Justice to render its final decision.
Then at the end of the calendar year, the president Andrea Agnelli, in office for twelve years, and the whole of the board of directors of Juventus resign during an extraordinary meeting.
The cause of these multiple departures?
An investigation launched by the Turin public prosecutor's office on the club's accounts.
Indeed, possible violations of the financial fair play regulations, but also the disputed granting of licenses, would be in question.
The club and its leaders will be judged in the coming months.
And if the club is probably there for nothing, remember that Paul Pogba was a bianconeri player during the extortion case of which he was the target.
Proof that in Piedmont, justice is never far from the lawns.
