An investigation into suspicious deals involving Juventus has revealed a new capital gains case involving Emil Audero and Sampdoria.
Il Secolo XIX via Calciomercato.com details how the Guardia di Finanza – Italy’s financial police – searched the Blucerchiati’s headquarters a few days ago, recovering various documents related to transfers, searching for evidence of falsified capital gains.
A report was sent by the Guardia di Finanza to the Genoa Public Prosecutor’s Office on July 20 ahead of the search, revealing some suspicious conversations overhead through wiretaps.
The first is between then-Juventus director Federico Cherubini and agent Giampiero Pocetta, relating to the transfer of Audero to Sampdoria: “We’ve already done something like this (a falsified capital gain, ed.), we already did it when we did Audero.”
The second involves Juventus Next Gen director Giovanni Manna and a director from Lugano: “We have Vrioni, but it was a capital gain and we had to take him.”
The wiretaps were sent by magistrates from Turin to their counterparts in Genoa, allowing them to open an independent investigation.
Also significant is a document found in Andrea Agnelli’s office at the Juventus headquarters, where the incoming and outgoing transfers for the 2019-20 season were listed, including the names of the players, the type of transfers, the other involved club and the value – distinguished between “real” and “exchange”. Part of the Audero deal is in the “exchange” column.
Another suspicious element for investigators is the budget for agent and intermediary costs, set at €54.389m between 2015 and 2021, rising from €3.67m in 2015 to €11.57m in 2018.