Juventus, penalty straight away: here’s how long sports justice will take according to Gazzetta dello Sport. The risk the Bianconeri are running
Not only the judicial investigation, but also sports justice is back on the scene, which has in its sights what was Juventus’ ‘salary manoeuvre’. It was 2020, the Covid had just arrived, and many clubs had asked the players for a cut given the stop in the championship. In those months, Juve had announced that they had reached an agreement for a four-month salary cut.
“In the pages of the closing investigation the judgement is overturned: the agreement, write the prosecutors, ‘falsely’ represents the situation. Because the company-footballers agreement did not provide for the waiver of the four March-June monthly payments, but “only one, with certain and unconditional recovery” of the other three, and with a positive financial effect not of 90 (budgeted figure), but of 22,354,647.70 euro”. This writes the Gazzetta dello Sport on newsstands this morning, which highlights how now the problem is not just capital gains but precisely this ‘agreement’ that had been found but was not entirely clear.
Juventus, the timing of sports justice
Agnelli
In short, there are investigations that will take their course, but the newspaper this morning reveals what the possible decisions of the federal prosecutor’s office are under the purely sporting aspect, of course: everything is played on Article 31 of the code of sporting justice where it reads, in paragraph 4, “the penalty of one or more points in the standings for the club that through falsification of its accounting or administrative documents, makes use of the services of professional sportsmen with whom it would not have been able to enter into contracts on the basis of the federal provisions in force”.
If Juventus were to have one or two penalty points, and were to lose something, for example qualification for the next Champions League, any penalties would be imposed this season, should the certainty of malice be reached. If, on the other hand, they were not to lose anything, then everything would be postponed until next season. And the timing? Not before March, at least. In short, the road is still a long one.