The Collegio di Garanzia has published its reasons for partially accepting the Juventus appeal against a 15-point Serie A penalty, so a new trial verdict is expected within a month.
The penalty was imposed in February, despite the fact the FIGC’s own prosecutor had only requested a nine-point penalty when presenting the case in January.
This was largely behind the decision in April to revoke that verdict and prompt a new evaluation from the same Federal Court of Justice, using a different panel of judges.
Juve are accused of artificially inflating transfer fees to boost capital gains and therefore balance the books.
It is a system that can only work if both clubs making the exchange are in agreement on the fee, so Juve argued there is no independent way of verifying the value of a player on the transfer market other than what two clubs agree on.
The Collegio di Garanzia today published its reasons, which argue that the FIGC had every right to reopen the case following new evidence.
It also crucially points out that the initial accusation remains solid and the Article 4 violation is not contested, so that covers the principles of fair play and probity.
An initial reading of the motivation suggests it points towards a lower penalty than the 15 points, so could well return to the -9 that had been originally suggested by the prosecutor Giuseppe Chine.
Juventus hope to appeal the next verdict too, potentially delaying the whole situation until the nine-point penalty is applied to the 2023-24 season rather than 2022-23.
Not all the appeals were accepted, as the bans to Andrea Agnelli, Fabio Paratici, Federico Cherubini and Maurizio Arrivabene were confirmed and can no longer be appealed.
But they did accept appeals for another seven figures in the Juventus board of directors, including vice-president Pavel Nedved.
The Juventus issue caused controversy because the same court that imposed the 15-point penalty had originally cleared Juve and another 10 clubs and 59 individuals of all charges in April 2022.
That changed when wiretap evidence was provided by the civil justice investigation into Juve’s finances.