Juventus, indictment requested for former top management in capital gains case: charges and investigation

On 23 March 2022, the Turin public prosecutor's office, as part of the investigation of false accounting hypotheses, launched further searches in law firms in Milan, Turin and Rome where private contracts between the club and the players were allegedly deposited, and started the hearings of the latter.

Meanwhile, the investigation by the Dederal Prosecutor's Office was also triggered, which in April 2022, referred 11 clubs (Juve, Samp, Napoli, Genoa, Empoli, Parma, Pisa, Pescara, Novara, Chievo and Pro Vercelli) to the Court of Cassation for direct responsibility, responsible for 'having accounted for capital gains and players' performance rights for values exceeding those allowed to an extent that affected the federal requirements for the issue of the national licence'. The sports justice ruling came on 15 April 2022 with a collective acquittal (including 59 executives), based on an established principle: 'there is no method for evaluating players'.

On 24 October 2022, the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office notified the club's board of directors of the closure of the preliminary investigation. The alleged offences are 'false corporate communications and false communications addressed to the market'. The court had rejected the week before the request for precautionary measures for three executives, including president Agnelli, who resigned on 28 November, together with the entire board of directors. On 30 November, the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office formalised the request for indictment for Agnelli and 11 other suspects.

The FIGC Prosecutor's Office, on the basis of the newest documents received from the Prisma investigation, meanwhile opens a new proceeding on the part concerning agreements with players for the integration of salaries. And Uefa is also moving for potential violations of club licensing and financial fair play regulations.

On 22 December 2022, again on the basis of the news that emerged in Turin and, in particular, the interceptions of the Juventus executives, the FIGC prosecutor, Giuseppe Chinè , asked for the revocation of the acquittal sentence on the capital gains case.

On 20 January 2023, the Federal Court issued its verdict: -15 points in the standings for Juventus; 2 and a half years' disqualification for Paratici, 2 for Agnelli and Arrivabene, 1 year and 4 months for Cherubini and 8 months for Nedved.

For the Court, 'Juventus committed a sporting disciplinary offence, taking into account the seriousness and the repeated and prolonged nature of the infringement, given the documentation from the club's directors with confessional value and the related manuscripts, the unequivocal interceptions and the further evidence concerning the concealment of documentation or even the manipulation of invoices'.

On 12 April 2023, the FIGC prosecutor's office notified the closure of the investigation into the so-called 'salary, partnership and agent manoeuvre'. Among other things, the prosecutor Chinè charges the Juventus club with violation of the principle of sporting loyalty for the three strands. In the meantime, the Collegio di Garanzia (Guarantee College) of the Coni (Italian National Olympic Committee) has accepted Juve's appeal for the capital gains case, sending the deeds back to the Federcalcio (Italian Football Federation) for a new evaluation, while on May 10th, on the penal front, the gup will refer the decision on the territorial competence to the Cassation (Court of Cassation).

On 19 May, for the salary manoeuvre, prosecutor Chinè referred Juventus and seven executives and former Bianconeri managers. Three days later, on 22nd May, the judges of the FIGC Court of Appeal penalised Juventus by 10 points (the prosecutor's request was -11) and acquitted Nedved and the other six former executives and councillors of the Juventus board of directors for whom the prosecution had requested eight months. "The penalty of 10 points to be served in the current football season, even from an equitable point of view, proves to be entirely suitable to satisfy the criteria of afflictiveness, proportionality and reasonableness as stated above. The penalty is commensurate with the managers' responsibilities: Paratici 4 points, Agnelli 3, Arrivabene 2, Cherubini 1. The acquittal of the other members of the board of directors was worth the 'discount' of 5 points compared to the -15.

On 30 May 2023, the national federal court accepts the plea bargain in the 'salary manoeuvre' case. For the club comes a fine of 718,000 euros and the waiver to present appeals. No plea bargain for former president Agnelli. On 10 July 2023, the revised sanction arrives for him: sixteen months of inhibition and a fine of 60,000 Euros.

On 28 July, Uefa's financial control body excluded Juventus from European competitions in the 2023/24 season for violating the uefa regulatory framework and the settlement agreement signed in August 2022.

On 7 December 2023, the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office - to which the documents of the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office, declared incompetent by the Court of Cassation on 6 September, were forwarded - asked Juventus to acquire documentation relating to the financial statements up to 30 June 2022, and on 22 December it announced that it had closed the preliminary investigation.

Finally, on 17 July 2024, the Capital Prosecutor's Office requested the indictment of the former president of Juventus, Agnelli, and other former executives then in charge of the Bianconeri company. The charges are, depending on the position, stock manipulation, obstruction of supervision and false invoicing.

In the investigation launched by the pool of magistrates of the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office's Economy Department, which alleged against six Juventus executives (Andrea Agnelli, Pavel Nedved and Stefano Cerrato and former Fabio Paratici, Marco Re and Stefano Bertola), the offences of false corporate communications and issuing invoices for non-existent transactions, capital gains 'characterised by fraudulently increased values' realised from 2018 to 2021, amounting to 282 million (out of a total of 322 million, 87.5%), were questioned.

In the 'Prisma' investigation initiated by the Procura di Torino, operations through which Juventus exchanged players with other clubs, not only Italian, ended up under observation. Precisely because of the mechanism of the football market and mirror operations, it is evident that the malicious intent to inflate the price of players in order to increase, through capital gains, revenues must be shared with the 'counterpart' (unless one assumes that the Juventus executives have deceived the purchasing party by extracting an inflated price and then recognised the same value to the acquired player). This is why it will have to be verified in the eventual hearing whether the investigators got their hands on the 'smoking gun', which cannot be just the presumption of the inflated price, since there is no 'price list' of players that can act as fair value for player trading (on this all the previous investigations on fictitious capital gains in the criminal sphere have come to a standstill), but which must therefore consist of proof of the malicious and fraudulent agreement between the parties, i.e. documentary evidence of the intention to assign the traded players an increased value in order to rig the accounts. And at that point, the accusations levelled against Juve in connection with the false reporting and ultimately the alteration of the accounts could be levelled against all clubs 'complicit' in the same criminal design.