Daniela Marilungo, who was formerly an independent member of Juventus’ board of directors, gave a detailed account of the drama in Turin in last November to investigators.
The Bianconeri are the central figure in the Prisma investigation, headed by the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office, who’ve accused the club of falsifying their capital gains through inflated player transfer values and misleading the market after agreeing to secretly pay players’ salaries in the early stages of the COVID pandemic.
On Tuesday, Juventus filed an appeal to CONI’s Collegio di Garanzia to try to overturn the 15-point deduction handed to them by the FIGC in a separate case last month.
On January 12, Daniela Marilungo spoke prosecutor Mario Bendoni and assistant prosecutor Marco Gianoglio for eight hours, detailing what happened in the days leading up to the resignations of the board of directors and Agnelli back in late November. Marilungo had been an independent member of the board since October 2015 before her resignation.
“I resigned by email and registered letter on November 25, 2022. I was pondering the decision, but it was not really up in the air. After the last chaotic, intense and personally very stressful board meeting, after a sleepless night, I felt uncomfortable not being an expert.
“The day before, both Andrea Agnelli and John Elkann had informed us independent directors that Laurence Debroux and Suzanne Heywood (non-independent directors, ed.) had themselves announced their resignation because they feared they would end up under investigation.
“This news triggered the timing of my resignation, in the evening before going to dinner I had a long, liberating cry. Then I kept receiving summons e-mails and I was asked for the contact details of my lawyer, who told me not to approve this balance sheet, otherwise I would have gone straight to the consequences I wanted to avoid.
“President Andrea Agnelli wanted to approve the balance sheet at all costs, otherwise there was a risk of non-inclusion in the league or penalty points in the table. John Elkann had a softer and more cooperative attitude.
“First the deadline was to be in November, then it turned out that it could be until June 2023. So, our concern increased, we were repeatedly told how these sporting consequences could affect the continuity of the company.
“From Juventus I never received the papers from the Prosecutor’s Office, I came to know at the end of October.”