Il Fatto Quotidiano reports that Andrea Agnelli and the Juventus board of directors resigned on Monday to avoid being arrested.
The executives were left between a rock and a hard place in recent days. The club needed to approve their balance sheets, and with the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office keeping a close eye on things, they had to make a tough choice.
Making changes to the balance sheets would’ve seemed like an admission of guilt, but not changing anything could’ve appeared as a reiteration of the alleged crime. Faced with this crossroads, Agnelli and the board decided to resign on mass.
After the resignations, the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office dropped their appeal against the refusal to place Agnelli and the board under house arrest, something they had requested a few weeks ago.
The Bianconeri have been accused of secretly paying players wages in the early stages of the COVID pandemic and investigations into their financial documents also revealed around €34m in undeclared debts.
Whilst Juventus have been cleared of falsifying capital gains in the sporting case, the criminal investigation is still ongoing.
that cant be true, if you commit a crime and the resign from the position you cant be arrested?
Oh no Mohammed you misunderstand, they will be arrested anyway, except now when it happens they will be FORMER directors.
@Mohammed and Forzaroma, I think you both misunderstand.
They would only be arrested if there was proof of the false accounting measures. (Paying employees is not illegal, even if you tell the world that you aren’t paying them).
By resigning they were able to avoid either falsifying the next set of accounts (illegal) or admitting that they had done so in the past (also illegal), leaving only an accusation – not illegal.
@ForzaAlex no, the issue isn’t that they were paying employees secretly (like some heroes), they did it so they don’t get TAXED for it. That is fraud or if you wanna name it false accounting it’s fine, however that would diminish only how it is perceived by people who don’t think.
And altough I agree with the Former director statement, their crime was commited whilst directors/executives so put it this way: Agnelli the Director will be the one who committed the crime but Agnelli the former director will suffer the consequences. Same person of course you know it too, but do not think for a second that rational people will be led to believe otherwise.
@burky Correct, thank you.
to above posters, thanks