Juventus ‘stopped’ capital gains tactic after Paratici left

More evidence is emerging that the current Juventus directors blamed Fabio Paratici, now at Tottenham, for allegedly inflating transfer fees. ‘Fortunately we stopped’ and the balance sheet changed drastically.

The club is under investigation for financial irregularities, including the accusation of artificially inflating transfer fees to provide capital gains and paying players under the table after they had agreed to forego their salaries during the COVID crisis.

News agency ANSA looks at the reasons the magistrate opted against an immediate arrest warrant and that includes several wiretaps featuring current director of sport Federico Cherubini.

He was originally the assistant to Paratici, then took over from his boss when that contract expired in July 2021 and the chief instead went to Tottenham Hotspur.

“You just couldn’t reason with Fabio,” said Cherubini.

“As long as Marotta was there, he could put the brakes on him. When Marotta went, he had carte blanche. Fabio could wake up in the morning and sign away €20m without anyone telling him anything.

“I told him several times: we’re over-doing it here. I mean, it’s a legit system, but you’re pushing it too far. He replied: it doesn’t matter to us. If you put 4 or 10, nobody can say anything.”

This implies Juventus knew full well they were inflating the worth of player exchanges in accordance with other clubs.

Another wiretap of Cherubini has now emerged on news agency ANSA from July 2021, which again points the finger at Paratici.

“Fortunately in the light of recent visits we stopped.”

The ‘visits’ were the initial investigations into the Juventus paperwork that started the whole affair just over a year ago.

It is noted that the vast change in approach was visible in the balance sheet too, because Juventus posted capital gains worth €126m in June 2019 and €166m in June 2020, but by June 2021 that figure had plummeted to only €29m.