Shame on Juve: the club receives a 15-point penalty for financial cheating, Agnelli suspended for 2 years

January 23 - Italy's most famous football club, Juventus, is reeling from a whopping 15-point penalty for false accounts while its former president Andrea Agnelli is banned for two years.

Agnelli, one of the key architects of the doomed European Super League project, and the rest of the Juventus board dramatically resigned en masse in November amid an investigation into club transfers and alleged false accounting. Now many of them, as well as the club itself, have been thrown into disgrace.

Juve were cleared by an Italian FA court (FIGC) last year, but prosecutors have had the case reopened based on evidence from a separate criminal investigation in Turin.

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Italian media widely report that documents from this criminal investigation convinced the court that there was systematic use of transfers to manipulate club accounts.

The 15-point penalty - even harsher than the nine-point deduction sought by prosecutors - comes 17 years after the infamous refereeing scandal that saw Juve demoted to Serie B and stripped of two Premier League titles. Serie A.

The latest penalty could end the 36-time Italian champion's chances of playing in Europe next season as he slips from third in Serie A to ninth in mid-table - 27 points behind leaders Napoli and 14 points on the Champions League places.

Juventus have announced that they will appeal the decision to Italy's highest sporting court. "We consider this to be a gross injustice also for millions of fans, which we hope will soon be redressed by the next court," the club's lawyers said in a statement.

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As for Agnelli, who not so long ago was one of the most powerful figures in the game at the helm of the European Club Association, he has been banned from all football activities, everything like former CEO Maurizio Arrivabene.

Further bans have been handed out to nine other members of Juve's staff or former board, the longest of two and a half years to former Juve sporting director Fabio Paratici, who now works as the managing director of Tottenham Hotspur.

The bans prohibit them all from engaging in football activities in Italy "with the request that the ban be extended to UEFA and FIFA activities".

Gianluca Ferrero was named Juventus' new president last Wednesday, presiding over a small five-person board.

Fines have been requested for eight other clubs: Sampdoria, Pro Vercelli, Genoa, Parma, Pisa, Empoli, Pescara and Novara. But all eight were cleared.

Juventus have already been knocked out of the Champions League this season and could face further sanctions from UEFA, which opened an investigation into the club's finances after the public prosecutor's office Turin has called for the indictment of Agnelli and 10 other former board members as well as the club itself. .

UEFA is apparently investigating whether Juventus misled it in order to resolve breaches of Financial Fair Play rules with a 'settlement agreement' in August last year.

At the start of the pandemic, Juventus said 23 players had agreed to pay cuts for four months to help the club through the crisis. But prosecutors say the players only gave up one month's salary.

In September, Juventus recorded a record loss of €254.3 million for the 2021-22 financial year, their fifth loss in a row.

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