Juventus has had a visit from investigative services. The offices of the reigning champions of Italy in Turin and Milan were searched by order of the judiciary. The employer of Matthijs de Ligt is said to have messed with the transfer values of players between 2019 and 2021, in order to get the balance in order financially.
Chairman Andrea Agnelli, vice-chairman Pavel Nedved and former technical director Fabio Paratici, now employed by Tottenham Hotspur, are the suspects in the case. The listed Juventus is said to have not only consciously scaled the transfer value of certain players higher in recent years, but also issued invoices for non-existent transactions.
According to the judiciary, it concerns a total of about fifty million euros in suspicious money movements. One of the deals under scrutiny is Juventus’ agreement with Barcelona on the transfers of Miralem Pjanic and Arthur Melo. The Brazilian left for Juventus for 72 million euros, an amount that can rise to 82 million euros due to bonuses. Pjanic went the opposite way for 60 million euros, bonuses can increase that amount to 65 million euros.
An accounting trick was the reason for its construction. Barcelona and Juventus were able to write good figures towards the end of the financial year with tens of millions in transfer income. Of course with a view to the Financial Fair Play rules. The estimated book value of Pjanic was just around ten million euros just before the deal. The value of Arthur ‘on the books’ was about twenty million euros. The hefty net profit was extremely welcome from an accounting point of view for both clubs and much more attractive than an exchange deal and approximately twelve million euros extra investment from Juventus.
Polishing the annual figures in the short term is therefore one of the reasons for the invasion. The investigative services have seized documents from various Juventus offices. The club has not yet commented on the allegations and the investigation. Juventus will play a home game against Atalanta in the Serie A on Saturday evening at 6 p.m.
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