While January 20 is the date for the hearing to reopen the trial into nine clubs including Juventus for inflated capital gains, the others cannot rest easy, because there are already wider investigations into Italian football.
The date has been set for the appeal from the FIGC prosecutor to overturn the original verdict from April and May that cleared 11 clubs of financial irregularities.
This is because of new evidence provided by the Prisma investigation, including wiretaps and confiscated documents, might be enough to change the magistrate’s view.
However, this could be just the tip of the iceberg, as Honorable Member of the Italian Republic Gaetano Amato announced there are plans to open up “a commission investigating football, starting from what happened at Juventus.
“All citizens deserve to know what is underneath it all. We are evaluating if there are the elements to go ahead and we’ll see what happens.
“It will be conducted regardless of club affiliation,” he told Canale 8.
There are already investigations into Napoli’s deal for Victor Osimhen with LOSC, achieved using youth team players valued at €20m and then dropped a year later for free, but the public prosecutor in Naples is still gathering evidence.
When that is presented to the magistrate to request a trial, we could see similar wiretaps and paperwork that is being leaked every day in the Italian press.
Similarly, Atalanta and Sassuolo had several exchanges with Juventus that raised alarm bells and showed up in the Prisma investigation evidence, but the January 20 appeal is to overturn an existing verdict, one they were not involved in.
This could be a real problem for all the sides in Serie A, B and C, because the use of capital gains to exchange players and boost revenue is widespread in Italy and beyond.
The reason it has not been punished so far is because it is impossible to judge how much a player is worth other than the fee two clubs agree for him.
There was one precedent that could be damaging, as Chievo were bankrupted in part because of the investigation into inflated transfer fees for capital gains in 2019, which also involved bankrupt Cesena Calcio.
In that case, the fees were considered falsified because players were exchanged at large sums and then never played for the new clubs, instead being loaned to amateur level teams.
This type of inquiry is in itself something extremely predatory and stupid, what do these people want, to destroy Italian football?! This is an absurd.
There is corruption world wide in football ,we all know that it is not a disease that is unique to Italy.