Juventus have struck one victory already in the appeal against a 15-point Serie A penalty, with the CONI effectively admitting there is a ‘lack of clarity’ in the motivation and suggesting a new trial.
The appeal to the Collegio di Garanzia was held today for three hours and a verdict is expected potentially this evening.
Juve lawyers are asking for the entire 15-point penalty to be revoked, along with the bans for directors including Fabio Paratici – now at Tottenham Hotspur – Andrea Agnelli, Maurizio Arrivabene and Federico Cherubini.
They were accused of artificially inflating transfer fees to boost capital gains.
A sign of the strength of Juve’s position is that the CONI prosecutor general of sport Ugo Taucer confessed the reasoning behind the 15-point penalty “has a lack of clarity in the motivation that must be appreciated and evaluated by a new judgment.”
Effectively, he is confirming the difficulty of imposing such a massive penalty for something that is frankly not very clear in the rules.
He also admits the motivation given is insufficient to explain why the penalty was 15 points when in January FIGC prosecutor Giuseppe Chinè requested a nine-point penalty for Juventus.
If that approach is taken by the Collegio di Garanzia, this will temporarily revoke the 15-point penalty in the current Serie A table pending a new trial.
It could well be combined with the upcoming trial into the salary manoeuvres, which arguably present an even more damning threat to Juve’s legal position because the club is accused of paying players under the table or via contract bonuses rather than their stated decision to give up four months of their salaries.
When the case for 11 clubs and 59 individuals was initially taken to the FIGC – including Juve, Napoli, Sampdoria, Genoa, Empoli, Parma, Pisa, Pescara, Novara, Chievo and Pro Vercelli – they were all cleared on April 15 because the court found it was impossible to independently ascertain the value of a player.
That changed only for Juventus in the light of new evidence in January 2023, leading to the 15-point penalty.