They were accused of falsifying Juventus Turin’s accounts during the coronavirus pandemic and paying salaries through the back door. Now the former Juventus Turin club management has received its punishment.
It was a financial scandal surrounding Juventus Turin that dragged on for months and initially resulted in a 15-point deduction and ultimately a 10-point deduction for the Old Lady in Serie A. As a result, Juve missed out on the Champions League. The scandal involved fictitious player valuations and accounting fraud. Now the affair has also come to a legal end.
In the trial concerning false accounting at Juve, the former club management team led by Andrea Agnelli and former world-class footballer Pavel Nedved have been given suspended sentences. The verdicts were reached on Monday in Rome as part of an agreement to settle the case.
Former club president Agnelli was given a 20-month suspended sentence for the events that took place between 2019 and 2021. The sentences against former vice president Nedved (14 months) and former sporting director Fabio Paratici (18 months) will also not be enforced. Former managing director Maurizio Arrivabene, on the other hand, was acquitted.
No admission of guilt under Italian law
“The decision to apply for the penalty was undoubtedly a difficult one,” Agnelli wrote on Monday on X. Like the other former officials, he denies any wrongdoing, and under Italian law, the agreement does not constitute an admission of guilt: “But after careful consideration, I am convinced that it is the appropriate course of action.”
There were also personnel consequences during the 2022/23 season. Agnelli resigned at the end of 2022 along with the rest of the board around Vice President Nedved. The long-time Czech international wore the Juve jersey from 2001 to 2009 and even won the Ballon d’Or in 2003. The proceedings against the former Juve leadership were initiated in 2021. The charges related to the artificial inflation of profits from transfers and the misleading of authorities and investors about the supposed salary waivers of the professionals during the coronavirus pandemic. According to the charges, the defendants had granted 23 professionals part of their salaries through the back door despite the official waiver.
