Turin Juventus Black Week

Juventus in Turin have endured one of the darkest weeks in their history and the ordeal is far from over, with each day bringing bad news for the club with thirty-six Italian championship titles. The team in the iconic black and white shirt, whose national status with many football fans is unique on the peninsula, is mired in a major financial and legal crisis.

On Friday, December 2, the Italian press published excerpts of compromising conversations between club executives that had been recorded by investigators from Italy’s financial watchdog. Some of these exchanges, where bad practices have been acknowledged, involve former Juventus president Andrea Agnelli and his cousin John Elkann, heir to the Fiat empire and head of Exor Holdings, the club’s majority shareholder. A day earlier, the prosecutor’s office in the capital of Piedmont demanded the dismissal of Andrea Agnelli and twelve leaders of Juventus, who are suspected of major violations.

The first change of the week came on the evening of Monday, November 28, when Mr. Agnelli and Juventus’ board of directors jointly announced their resignations, citing a legal investigation into possible embezzlement of the club’s accounts. Following the announcements by the Italian judiciary, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) also announced that it was launching an investigation into the club, whose stock fell on the Milan stock exchange.

The current turbulence stems from an escalation of the crisis linked to an investigation launched in 2021 into allegations of embezzlement at the club, such as the presentation of false accounting information to investors and the production of invoices related to non-existent transactions. The purpose of such maneuvers in both cases would be to disguise the financial situation of the club, which has been degraded by the risky strategic choices of recent years. Juventus recorded a large loss related to, among other things, the salary paid to former Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo for the period 2018-2021, respectively, during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, where income was reduced due to the closure of the stadium.

“Fake deals” by players.

To artificially improve the record, the club used a fake player exchange system. This mechanism of cross-selling with other formations does not involve any financial exchange, but made it possible to register in the club’s balance sheet a fictitious capital gain related to the valuation of the players concerned. According to the Italian media, the amounts recorded in this way may reach 282 million euros.