Fifteen penalty points. It is the sensational sting decided by the Federal Court of Appeals from the Figc against Juventus for the “capital gains case“. A sanction that goes far beyond that requested by the prosecutor Giuseppe Chine, which stopped at nine points. The sports judges have decided to reopen the proceeding concluded on 27 May with theabsolution of nine clubs from the charge of having made fictitious capital gains. But only against the black and white club: Sampdoria, Empoli, Genoa, Parma, Pisa, Pescara, Pro Vercelli and the “old” Novara, in fact, have been acquitted. The federal prosecutor had requested the partial revocation of that sentence on the basis of the attiarrived from Turin, related toPrisma investigationthat sees Andrea Agnelli and the former leaders of the Juventus accused on charges, among others, of false accounting. The penalty has immediate effect, without prejudice to the possibility for the Turin club to do appeal to the Coni Guarantee College: therefore the bianconeri go down from 37 to 22 points in the Serie A standings, falling from third to eleventh placeon a par with Empoli and Bologna, very far from the placements that lead to qualifying for the European cups.
The hearing began shortly before 13 and it is concluded around 5 pm. In addition to the penalty, the Court presided over by Mario Luigi Torsello imposed an inhibition from carrying out activities within the FIGC (with a request to extend it to UEFA and FIFA) for two years and a half to the former Juventus sporting director Fabio Paraticiper two years to the former president Andrea Agnelli and to the former board member Maurice Arrivabeneper one year and four months to the current ds Federico Cherubini and for eight months a Pavel Nedved, also a former board member. Also in this respect the judges were stricter than the prosecutor’s office: the request was 16 months for Agnelli, twenty months and ten days for Paratici, ten months for Cherubini, 12 months for Nedved and Arrivabene. Against the other companies involved, however, simple fines had been requested. At the same time, the trend on the so-called “wage maneuvers“, which according to the Turin prosecutors Juve implemented in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons to distort the balance sheets: in this case, which has nothing to do with capital gains, the sporting procedure part of zero and soon the prosecutor Chinè could ask for the deferment of the company and its directors.
A follow the hearing the new president of Juventus was also connected from Turin, Gianluca Ferrero. In addition to the lawyers, sporting director Cherubini was present. Also connected Paratici, now manager of Tottenham. The Juventus club has deposited a memory defensivewith the positions already expressed and reaffirmed: appeal “inadmissibledue to the absence, in the case in question, of the application conditions of this extraordinary remedy”, i.e. of “facts new“, according to the principle according to which “no one can be prosecuted or convicted under the jurisdiction of the same State for an offense for which he is already been acquitted or convicted following a final judgment in accordance with the law and criminal procedure of that State” (do not do the same thing twice).
“This prohibition”, the memorandum continued, “constitutes a fundamental principle of the Italian legal order, as recognized by the Constitutional Court, which, as known, has fully implemented the interpretative indications on the matter coming from the European Courts. On the subject, the defense writers are not unaware of the orientation of the sports jurisprudence according to which the institution of revocation ex art. 63 of the Sports Justice Code, would not violate the prohibition of twice in the same nor would it be incompatible with the Coni Code of Justice; however, they believe that a renewed and in-depth analysis is appropriate reflection in the field”. Further on it is specified: “In particular, with reference to the revocation, the art. 63, paragraph 1, lett. d) provides for the possibility of challenging all definitive decisions adopted by the bodies of sports justice if the examination of a decisive fact that could not be known in the previous procedure has been omitted, or occurred after the decision became unappealable , new facts the knowledge of which would have implied a different pronunciation’. The art. 63, paragraph 4, lett. a), on the other hand, allows for the sentence to be reviewed before the Federal Court of Appeal in the event that ‘new evidence arises or is discovered which, alone or combined with those already evaluated, demonstrate that the offender should have been acquitted'”. read in the document signed by the lawyers Maurizio Bellacosa, Davide St. George e Nicola What.
