According to the Corriere dello Sport, Juventus are only one of the many clubs under investigation for inflated transfer values, including Napoli, Roma, Atalanta, Genoa and Sampdoria.
The investigation into Juve is formal, with the club’s offices in Turin and Milan raided on Friday and Saturday, but this could just be the beginning for Italian and European football.
It is part of a wider investigation into transfer values and the so-called plusvalenze – capital gains – especially when it comes to player exchanges.
Because the market dictates what a player is worth, two clubs can agree to a set fee, even if it is extremely inflated, allowing both of them to balance their books by trading assets seemingly worth huge sums.
Most often, it is seen with youth team players who are traded as part of a larger transfer and given vastly inflated prices.
According to the Corriere dello Sport, there are several clubs involved in the first stage of the investigation, which began secretly in the autumn of 2020.
They include Napoli, Roma, Atalanta, Genoa and Sampdoria.
Napoli are already being looked at in France for their deal with LOSC for Victor Osimhen, which was one of the clearest examples of the technique used.
Officially, that transfer was worth over €80m, but that included €20m worth of player exchanges.
The four players in question, goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis and three youth team products, didn’t really play for Lille and were released from their contracts after loans to Serie C sides.
It is also reported the FIGC requested the opportunity to share information with the financial authorities as part of their own investigation into plusvalenze in football.
Because this type of creative accounting requires two clubs to agree on the valuation of a player, it stands to reason that only the practice is widespread.
Ahah! So maybe all the Juve haters from other clubs might not have so much to say about “Juve cheating” when they see their club has been doing the exact SAME thing.
So evryone exept INTER investigated.State of limitations again!!!All their fixing will be reavelead after it expires.But its hard to investigate yourself!!!I bet d same people that forgot to include evedance against inter in calcopoli are runing this investigation too.
Nooo wayyy! Only Juventus is corrupt, all others are angels!
How does this help the ‘buying’ club though, to seemingly pay twice what a player is worth? As part of FFP, don’t transfer spends have to be below a certain proportion of revenue? Why would Napoli want people to think they had paid so much for Osimhen?
Funny how it’s only happening to Italian clubs. Wasn’t Barca and Man City on the other end of some of those trades?
Good point guy 12. It is all well and good that Italian prosecutors are looking into financial misdoings , but Man City, Chelsea, PSG have been run in the most disgusting way for a decade. And now Newcastle too.
Billions pumped in by Middle East airlines and Russian gas money, totally fixing their leagues and changing the wages and transfer fees for everyone. They got away with everything, and disgusting parasitic agents became multi millionaires.
Now , all of sudden, Juve and Napoli and Atalanta are in trouble? Are they worst clubs in Europe. I doubt it.
And I haven’t even mentioned the overlords of football corruption and bribery- FIFA. How is there a world cup in Qatar?
Agree 100%. Cris
People defend Juventus by saying other teams do it? Strange, I didn’t see AC Milan on the list.
Guys, this investigation is not ran by international football organizations but it’s started by Italian authorities, so they don’t care about Tottenham, Chelsea, City or Barcelona. Simple as that.
Every time I hear about affair like this I ask myself – who will benefit from this. Who will benefit from making life hard on Napoli, Atalanta, Juventus? hmm, let’s see…