Hello all, welcome back to the blog. If you’ve been reading the news recently, you will know that Juventus have been deducted 15 points in Serie A after an 18-month-long investigation into their transfers and accounts concluded that they had been announcing the wrong transfer fees for players in and out. Now, you may not know much more beyond that, as the legal jibber jabber can be hard to decipher. However, fret not, loyal readers, as I am here to explain everything. Let’s jump in to what exactly Juve did wrong, how they can appeal the ban, and what it means for them, and weirdly, Tottenham. And don’t worry, I’ll explain it in English.
What did Juventus do wrong?
Now, I could be like some people on the internet and drag out what they did wrong until the end of this section, but I won’t. Oversimplified, they inflated players’ transfer values way too much. Let me explain. It’s more complicated than that.
Juventus – as well as many other clubs in Europe, do their business by the “magic of amortization”, as Gab Marcotti says it, in that with transfer fees, clubs pay, say, 20 million each in two separate deals with each other, but over a 5-year span of the players’ contract, pay it out, for 4 million a year for 5 years. It’s similar to what Chelsea are doing, but not exactly (If you want more detail, check out my recent Chelsea post). Therefore, they can say that they paid only 4 million while receiving 20 million for a profit of 16 million. If the other club does this, they can too.
This, as you may be able to tell, only works on paper and doesn’t translate to actual profits, but it gets you in the good books of FFP to show gains of 16 million. You actually have to live up to the deal and pay 4 million while receiving 4 back each year.
This isn’t illegal, and as I said, many European clubs do this to have FFP on their side and in and of itself isn’t illegal. Juventus, however, have been exploiting this to another level where it then becomes illegal and sanctionable.
Every club sometimes overpays for players, it’s a part of football. While his transfermarkt value was only 40 million, Manchester United paid 95 million euros. However, Juventus did some of the deals we saw before, but severely overvalued players. They sold players from their deep selection of young players that were valued at around 500k for 10 million, and bought somebody back on the same fee from the same club, so you can increase your capital gains from 400k if the player had been sold at his market value to 8 million with the deal in place, a 20x increase.
They did this many times and back in 2021, an investigation opened up in their name about these deals which was then closed, but new findings in 2022, an investigation known as Prisma, saw them eventually be found guilty.
Another aspect of the investigations is that, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Juve and some players agreed to suspend wages 4 months, or that’s what they told the Italian FA, when in reality, they gave some wages back.
All in all, they violated the rules of being transparent with your shareholders and law 4 of the Italian FA’s rules, which says all clubs must be fair and just with their dealings. That, Juventus have not been.
Now we know what Juventus did, let’s see what could happen.
What sanctions have (and can be) applied to Juventus?
Juventus, as we know, have been deducted 15 points in Serie A, a sanction which has turned their season from a title charge to a fight for European Football, dropping from 3rd to 10th. While the original investigation and prosecutors demanded a 9-point deduction, good form by Juve increased the suspension to 15 points. However, that’s not all.
A number of Juve officials during the period covered, including current Tottenham Sporting Director Fabio Paratici, have been suspended. Paratici has got the longest ban, serving 2.5 years. That would mean he would be back in his role around the start of the 2025-26 season and the 2025 Summer transfer window. However, he won’t get suspended until Juventus use up both of their appeals.
The bad news doesn’t stop there for Tottenham either, as suspensions could happen for players who took the pay cut during the pandemic, two of which being Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur, who could both be suspended for a month each.
Juventus could also be suspended from the UEFA Champions League, Europa League, or Conference League, whichever one they qualify for, as UEFA officials have met today to discuss the situation, the results of which aren’t yet known.
If we see an extension on the investigation, 8 other unnamed Italian clubs could still not be in the clear, clubs which participated in the shady deals with Juve.
What could this mean for Juventus’ future?
It wouldn’t at all be good. In 2021-22, Juve reported losses of 250 million, including the shady deals, this also includes 700 million euros of investment from shareholders (who didn’t know this was going on) over the last years. No Europe also means significant losses by Juventus.
Gianluca Ferrero, the man who replaced Andrea Agnelli when he and the whole Juve board resigned weeks before the investigation started, said that the club needs to be more morally and financially responsible, not doing any more of these deals and relying on the youth academy rather than spending so much.
No matter what, Juve can’t go on doing what they’ve been doing,
Can Juventus appeal?
Yes, and they’ve made very publicly clear that they intend to. They can appeal once the investigators release the written reasons for the sanctions. This could go on for a long time, an unspecified amount of time.
The Olympic Committee will take a look at this once Juventus appeal, and will be the adjudicators for the sanctions and what will happen with this case in the coming weeks.
While I don’t think Juve will get all 15 points back, we could see the suspension reduced to the original 9 points that was proposed in December. For the Ronaldo fans reading this, Ronaldo wasn’t one of the players who took the 4-month pay cut so faces no risk of a suspension, even if he may get a subpoena.
All in all, I hope this cleared it up for you, as clear as it can be with what we have right now, and hopefully you can keep up with this case fully understanding it as it continues advancing into the future. I’m Jim James, until next time.