Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Fabio Paratici" in English language version.
Let's assume that there are these phone calls in which Juventus says: 'I'm inflating the price of a player', therefore 'confessing': is it false accounting? And how bad is it? In the words of ... lawyer Francesco Andrianopoli ... 'A clarification: Juventus did not engage in a false/fraudulent operation with these capital gains. In the field of financial statements, it is fraud when an entry that does not exist is entered in the financial statements. For example: I sell an asset for €100,000, but I don't actually own that asset. When, on the other hand, items are entered in the balance sheet that have been valued incorrectly, excessively, or in incorrect years, that is not a 'falsehood' but an 'incorrect entry', which is a balance sheet irregularity but not a crime or an offence. What we are talking about, in terms of capital gains, is not 'false' data, because there are two teams that exchange two players and say: 'mine is worth 20, yours is worth 20, let's make this exchange so you make a capital gain and I make a capital gain' whereas the 'real' value (which is impossible to determine for those players) is not 20 but something less. At this point, there is no falsehood: first of all because not the entire value is fictional: perhaps those players, instead of being worth 20 and 20, were worth (if anyone can ascertain it) 10 and 10, but certainly not 0 and 0. Secondly: on their balance sheets, each of the two teams put both the positive entry of +20 and the negative entry of -20. So it is not the situation mentioned above where a non-existent (false) asset is sold and an operation is carried out by introducing only a positive (fraudulent) component to the balance sheet. In addition to the immediate capital gain of 20 million, in subsequent years the team will find their costs increased by 20 million. So there is no positive result on the long-term financial statements; there is the problem that these items end up on different financial statements, but that is very different from saying that they are 'false'.
Case #1 – Genoa, Udinese, Reggina (2008) ... Result? €400,000 fine for the companies. ... Case #2 – Sampdoria (2008) ... Result? Fine of €36,000 for the company. ... Case #3 – AC Milan and Inter (2008) ... Result? €90,000 fine for the companies. ... Case #4 – Chievo and Cesena (2018) ... Result? 3 penalty points for Chievo and 15 for Cesena. ... sentences not final as in the meantime the two companies went bankrupt.
... the lawyer Giorgio Spallone, who on the appeal to the TAR by Federico Cherubini and Fabio Paratici, and not by Juventus, confirms: 'It was a strategy.' In short, it was not the directly Black and White club that disapplied the sports prejudicial – i.e. compliance with the three levels of judgment – given that the TAR itself claims that 'the appeal is certainly admissible also in terms of the absence of prejudicial sports.'
'How many contradictions in the margin of the note. At first glance, the irrelevance of this document with respect to the well-known sports dispute currently submitted to the judgment of the Collegio di Garanzia dello Sport at Coni is evident. In light of the above, two questions remain open. The first. The reason, increasingly due to the apparent irrelevance of the document, the persistent and repeated refusal to display it. ... The second consideration. This approach by the FIGC – rigorously defensive in relation to the refusal to display a document which, following an order from the TAR, later proved to be of little, if any, significance for the purposes of the dispute – is in clear contrast, if not contradiction, with the choice of the FIGC not to appear in the proceedings.'
Juventus have formally submitted an appeal to the penalty. The 15-point penalty is harsher than the nine-point deduction recommended by an FIGC prosecutor earlier in the day. This all comes after the club's recent financial statements were under scrutiny by prosecutors and Italian market regulator CONSOB in the past months for alleged false accounting and market manipulation. ... The investigation led to the board stepping down in November, which also marked the end of an era for Agnelli and Nedved. The club acknowledged the so-called 'salary maneuvers' from the 2019–20 and 2020–21 fiscal years, adding that 'the complexity of such profiles on valuation elements may be subject to different interpretations.'
The capital gains theme has been 'talked about' for decades and it is not a lever to which only Juventus have resorted, recently sentenced in the sports process. It is therefore inevitable to ask a question: why have they not been defined in advance of the rules of clear conduct so as to be able, subsequently, to check and punish severely those who do not respect them? ... the previous jurisprudentials highlighting that these behaviors have almost never been punished, not so much because the values of the crossed players had not been inflated, but rather for the difficulty of demonstrating it (not existing something similar to a market value, above all for younger players). We get to the point. Those who follow the investigation will be thinking: 'And no, for Juventus it is different, because being listed they should have applied Par. 45 of IAS 38 and not to register the capital gain!' But this is just a fig leaf. The sporting sentence condemns Juventus for having concealed the exchange nature of the crossed operations in order to avoid the risk of not being able to enroll the capital gain. ... Can you punish for this reason, despite the fact that Juventus have declared that they have never applied this accounting policy in the past (and therefore never declared in public budgets)? Even though this accounting treatment would seem to be applied by very few football clubs in Europe (Consob says at least two)? Despite no control body of the world of football and non-internal and external, has it ever contested the failure to apply to the three (now two) listed companies? But above all, can a company be punished for the failure to apply an accounting policy which, if considered the rule to be applied ... it would concern ... all football teams?
Why only Juventus? And why were they retried on a charge for which the same federal prosecutor's office acquitted them? Basically, how is it possible that they were tried and convicted of a crime (that of capital gains) that did not exist? How is it possible to arrive at an afflictive verdict without even indictment of the persons under investigation? And above all – this is the defensive thesis of the Juventus lawyers – the reasons for the sentence are 'tainted by illogicality and groundlessness'. Questions and statements that mix with feelings of anger and bewilderment that fuel the strong discontent of the community of tifosi. ... The sensation and fear ... fuel the idea that – as happened in 2006 – once again only one company was targeted.
Among the other elements that emerge from the 99 pages of the appeal, the fact that the sentence is linked to an 'uncontested infringement' ... which evaluates it as unfounded because 'the capital gains from so-called cross transactions lead to a purely financial benefit but they do not produce any liquidity, which can be used for example in a shopping campaign.' One of the key points of the appeal concerns the conviction for something of which Juventus had not been accused: 'The federal court of appeal used probative elements from the criminal investigation to actually create a new illegal act against the defendants', it is the excerpt from the appeal reported by ANSA. These new allegations, according to the defense, would have violated the principle of due process and the right of defense. The charges unrelated to the referral, according to the club, are the 'hidden' invoice at Olympique Marseille and the Arthur-Pjanic exchange with Barcelona.
As the Gazzetta dello Sport has previously outlined, the practice of plusvalenza is undeniably of colossal importance in Italy. In 2018–19, the last season before Covid-19 hit, 20 Serie A clubs made a total of €699m in capital gains – more than any of the other 'Big Five' leagues. ... The difference is that while this affair does involve clubs in other countries, it is focused on Italy, and Juventus in particular.
The media have also been left in a state of shock by the FIGC ruling. It had been widely thought that Juve were in serious trouble – the resignation of the entire board was an ominous sign – but the severity of the sentence still took many by surprise. Indeed, it is worth noting that earlier on Friday Chine had only called for a nine-point penalty for Juve; instead, they were docked 15 points. ... They particularly wanted to know why only Juve had been punished, given it should, in theory, take two clubs to inflate a transfer fee. Remember, Sampdoria, Empoli, Genoa, Parma, Pisa, Pescara, Pro Vercelli and Novara were all absolved of any wrongdoing ... .
... and for this reason some hypothesize that the Court decided on the basis of art. 4, paragraph 1, of the sporting justice code, i.e. intended to sanction the behavior of Juventus managers as contrary to the principle of sporting loyalty to which every club and each member is bound. 'This, however, presupposes a modification, by the Federal Court, of the charge advanced, according to what is known from the news, by the Federal Prosecutor's Office. The Federal Judge has ample powers in matters of juridical qualification of the disputed fact, but this power must never overflow into an alternative reconstruction of the ascertained and disputed facts. In any case, the 15-point penalty would appear difficult to understand if related to the violation of the principle of sporting loyalty. Abnormal.'
... while accepting the defensive thesis according to which 'there are no uniform and objective evaluation criteria of the actual value of the player.'
Juventus ask, principally, to the Board of Guarantee to cancel the contested decision for the inadmissibility of the appeal for revocation of the Federal Prosecutor's Office without postponement, not constituting the investigation documents sent by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Turin 'New facts' suitable for subverting the ratio decidendi of the revocated sentence. In the alternative, the club asks to cancel the decision for violation of the principles of the contradictory and the right trial sanctioned, as well as for violation of the right of defense. The appeal also proposes other reasons to request cancellation without postponement and also suggests 'canceling the sentence for violation of the principles of the right trial'. Regarding the sanction, Juve ask to cancel the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal for omitted motivation on the quantification of the penalties imposed in violation of Art. 12 CGS FIGC and in violation of the principle of proportionality in the sanctioning treatment. Finally, the Juventus club asks in the extreme subordinate to dispose of the postponement to the competent federal sports justice body, which will want — according to the principle of law sanctioned by the guarantee college — reforming the contested decision in favour of the applicant. In addition to that of the Juventus company, the Guarantee College of Guarantee received the appeals of the former Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli and the former sports director Fabio Paratici. CONI makes it official.
The control body underlines how 'although the trading of players has guaranteed copious capital gains, it has generated very little liquidity, and how this phenomenon makes it difficult to appreciate the real correspondence between the prices agreed for the individual transactions and the real market value of the athletes.'
Fabio Paratici became more important than ever as the only senior club figure with whom Conte was still close. ... Ultimately, it took the expertise of Paratici to bridge the two visions of Conte and Levy. At the end of the January window, he went back to Juventus and landed Dejan Kulusevski on an 18-month loan and Rodrigo Bentancur for just €19million (£16.7m; $20.2m), plus €6million in possible add-ons. These were Conte-ready players signed for Tottenham-friendly prices. Both came straight into the team and it was a turning point for the Conte era. The first game Bentancur and Kulusevski started together was the 3–2 win at Manchester City, which launched Spurs' big push for fourth.
The journalist Carlo Nesti has his opinion on the 15-point penalty imposed on Juventus for the capital gains case: 'It seems to relive the days of Calciopoli, with the same reasons of legitimacy, but also of persistence. Surely the punishment, inflicted on Juventus, is obvious, in the light of 2 articles: the 4, which obliges to observe the principles of sporting loyalty, and the 31, which condemns the management and economic violation. We can discuss, if anything, the proportions of the penalty, whether they are fair, limited or you exaggerate. As in 2006, in any case, an inconsistency already emerges. How is it possible that other companies have not been sanctioned, when the phenomenon of capital gains was, and is, very widespread? Is it possible to make capital gains on your own? The answer, of course, is 'no', but the verdict, at least so far, does not seem to take this into account. Therefore, perplexities emerge about the umpteenth fury, as in the days of Calciopoli, towards the Black and White club.'
During the exposition of his defensive line, the Juventus lawyer Nicola Apa asked that the revocation procedure be rejected for a formal question. The Public Prosecutor's Office allegedly exceeded the time limit for presenting the request. As emerged from press articles, the Public Prosecutor's Office had contacted the Turin prosecutors on 26 October and on 27 October the news of a visit to Turin by a prosecutor's envoy had spread. So the first new facts would have come into the possession of the prosecution at the end of October. And the sporting justice code prescribes a 30-day deadline for submitting the revocation request, which arrived, however, only on December 22, i.e. 56 days later.
Judge Santoro, former President of the Federal Court of Appeal of the FIGC and of the Council of State, as an expert in the field of sports justice ... 'The reasons for the sentence of the Federal Court of Appeal have increased the doubts that I had already raised previously on the legitimacy of the revocation: to justify the reopening of the trial, new facts must arise which the judges identified in the telephone interceptions transmitted by the Turin Public Prosecutor' ... 'First of all, the interceptions cannot be used to prove accounting offences: in this case, the judges consider the capital gains, with artificial values given to the players, accounting offenses with which Juventus allegedly distorted the balance sheets.' ... 'To prove an accounting offense, technical advice is needed, which I have not seen when reading the pages of the reasons, because the judges do not have the competence in the matter: the lack of technical advice has also prevented the defendants from the right of defense . And then there is a second aspect of wiretapping.' ... 'Interceptions are not admissible both in the first phase of the revocation, the rescission phase, which requests the annulment of the contested provision, as I explained earlier, but also in the second phase, the rescission phase, in which a new provision is issued intended to replace the first.'
Of course there is a precedent that is also quite close in time: Milan and Inter ended up on trial in 2008 for the 2004 budgets, which ended up in the sights of the Judiciary for the usual capital gains. But they were acquitted because 'the fact does not constitute a crime'. The problem is the scientific definition of the value of a player in the transfer market. In short, there are no exact parameters for deciding that an evaluation is 'false', given that the number of factors and conditions that can influence it. Thirteen years after the acquittal of the Milanese [clubs], the investigation brings back the age-old question of capital gains in the offices of a prosecutor, just as [FIFA president] Infantino, only a couple of weeks ago, hypothesized the introduction of a mathematical algorithm to decide the player rating.
'Bone-sack interceptions, as they say in jargon, that is, without comment, without legal qualifications, are a simple transcription of speeches: drawing a conclusion of imputability from this is not permitted.' ... 'No, they should have opened a new referral and proceeded with a new trial. There are 14,000 pages of interceptions: congratulations to the two judges who managed to read them all in the space of a few weeks...' The Federal Court has also changed the charge: from article 31, which only provides for a fine, in article 4, the one on loyalty, which instead provides for penalty points... 'The change of crime is another highly questionable element: having brought up loyalty is a consequence of the accounting offense but it can represent a procedural defect even stronger. This proceeding has already undergone two levels of judgment and it would have already been serious to change the charge in the appeal process, i.e. in the second level: here instead we are faced with a change even in the revocation phase, when the judges have a much more limited power. The federal judge must never overflow into an alternative reconstruction of the established and disputed facts. In any case, the 15-point penalty appears difficult to understand, if related to the violation of the principle of sporting loyalty.'
'Consistently, the Federal Prosecutor in the hearing before the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal had requested the pecuniary sanction of the fine, of 800 thousand euros for Juventus and, gradually, for the other clubs. Requests then rejected in both levels of judgment.'
'Juventus Football Club and its legal team have carefully read and will analyse thoroughly the reasons, published a little while ago, of the decision of the United Sections of the Federal Court of Appeal. It is a document, predictable in content, in the light of the weighty decision, but vitiated by obvious illogicality, lack of motivation and unfoundedness in point of law, which the Company and the individuals will oppose with an appeal to the Guarantee College at CONI within the set deadlines. The validity of Juventus' reasons will be asserted firmly, while respecting the institutions that issued it.'
'Juventus Football Club and its legal team have carefully read and will analyse thoroughly the reasons, published a little while ago, of the decision of the United Sections of the Federal Court of Appeal. It is a document, predictable in content, in the light of the weighty decision, but vitiated by obvious illogicality, lack of motivation and unfoundedness in point of law, which the Company and the individuals will oppose with an appeal to the Guarantee College at CONI within the set deadlines. The validity of Juventus' reasons will be asserted firmly, while respecting the institutions that issued it.'
Fabio Paratici became more important than ever as the only senior club figure with whom Conte was still close. ... Ultimately, it took the expertise of Paratici to bridge the two visions of Conte and Levy. At the end of the January window, he went back to Juventus and landed Dejan Kulusevski on an 18-month loan and Rodrigo Bentancur for just €19million (£16.7m; $20.2m), plus €6million in possible add-ons. These were Conte-ready players signed for Tottenham-friendly prices. Both came straight into the team and it was a turning point for the Conte era. The first game Bentancur and Kulusevski started together was the 3–2 win at Manchester City, which launched Spurs' big push for fourth.
Let's assume that there are these phone calls in which Juventus says: 'I'm inflating the price of a player', therefore 'confessing': is it false accounting? And how bad is it? In the words of ... lawyer Francesco Andrianopoli ... 'A clarification: Juventus did not engage in a false/fraudulent operation with these capital gains. In the field of financial statements, it is fraud when an entry that does not exist is entered in the financial statements. For example: I sell an asset for €100,000, but I don't actually own that asset. When, on the other hand, items are entered in the balance sheet that have been valued incorrectly, excessively, or in incorrect years, that is not a 'falsehood' but an 'incorrect entry', which is a balance sheet irregularity but not a crime or an offence. What we are talking about, in terms of capital gains, is not 'false' data, because there are two teams that exchange two players and say: 'mine is worth 20, yours is worth 20, let's make this exchange so you make a capital gain and I make a capital gain' whereas the 'real' value (which is impossible to determine for those players) is not 20 but something less. At this point, there is no falsehood: first of all because not the entire value is fictional: perhaps those players, instead of being worth 20 and 20, were worth (if anyone can ascertain it) 10 and 10, but certainly not 0 and 0. Secondly: on their balance sheets, each of the two teams put both the positive entry of +20 and the negative entry of -20. So it is not the situation mentioned above where a non-existent (false) asset is sold and an operation is carried out by introducing only a positive (fraudulent) component to the balance sheet. In addition to the immediate capital gain of 20 million, in subsequent years the team will find their costs increased by 20 million. So there is no positive result on the long-term financial statements; there is the problem that these items end up on different financial statements, but that is very different from saying that they are 'false'.
Judge Santoro, former President of the Federal Court of Appeal of the FIGC and of the Council of State, as an expert in the field of sports justice ... 'The reasons for the sentence of the Federal Court of Appeal have increased the doubts that I had already raised previously on the legitimacy of the revocation: to justify the reopening of the trial, new facts must arise which the judges identified in the telephone interceptions transmitted by the Turin Public Prosecutor' ... 'First of all, the interceptions cannot be used to prove accounting offences: in this case, the judges consider the capital gains, with artificial values given to the players, accounting offenses with which Juventus allegedly distorted the balance sheets.' ... 'To prove an accounting offense, technical advice is needed, which I have not seen when reading the pages of the reasons, because the judges do not have the competence in the matter: the lack of technical advice has also prevented the defendants from the right of defense . And then there is a second aspect of wiretapping.' ... 'Interceptions are not admissible both in the first phase of the revocation, the rescission phase, which requests the annulment of the contested provision, as I explained earlier, but also in the second phase, the rescission phase, in which a new provision is issued intended to replace the first.'
Among the other elements that emerge from the 99 pages of the appeal, the fact that the sentence is linked to an 'uncontested infringement' ... which evaluates it as unfounded because 'the capital gains from so-called cross transactions lead to a purely financial benefit but they do not produce any liquidity, which can be used for example in a shopping campaign.' One of the key points of the appeal concerns the conviction for something of which Juventus had not been accused: 'The federal court of appeal used probative elements from the criminal investigation to actually create a new illegal act against the defendants', it is the excerpt from the appeal reported by ANSA. These new allegations, according to the defense, would have violated the principle of due process and the right of defense. The charges unrelated to the referral, according to the club, are the 'hidden' invoice at Olympique Marseille and the Arthur-Pjanic exchange with Barcelona.
Juventus have formally submitted an appeal to the penalty. The 15-point penalty is harsher than the nine-point deduction recommended by an FIGC prosecutor earlier in the day. This all comes after the club's recent financial statements were under scrutiny by prosecutors and Italian market regulator CONSOB in the past months for alleged false accounting and market manipulation. ... The investigation led to the board stepping down in November, which also marked the end of an era for Agnelli and Nedved. The club acknowledged the so-called 'salary maneuvers' from the 2019–20 and 2020–21 fiscal years, adding that 'the complexity of such profiles on valuation elements may be subject to different interpretations.'
Why only Juventus? And why were they retried on a charge for which the same federal prosecutor's office acquitted them? Basically, how is it possible that they were tried and convicted of a crime (that of capital gains) that did not exist? How is it possible to arrive at an afflictive verdict without even indictment of the persons under investigation? And above all – this is the defensive thesis of the Juventus lawyers – the reasons for the sentence are 'tainted by illogicality and groundlessness'. Questions and statements that mix with feelings of anger and bewilderment that fuel the strong discontent of the community of tifosi. ... The sensation and fear ... fuel the idea that – as happened in 2006 – once again only one company was targeted.
Of course there is a precedent that is also quite close in time: Milan and Inter ended up on trial in 2008 for the 2004 budgets, which ended up in the sights of the Judiciary for the usual capital gains. But they were acquitted because 'the fact does not constitute a crime'. The problem is the scientific definition of the value of a player in the transfer market. In short, there are no exact parameters for deciding that an evaluation is 'false', given that the number of factors and conditions that can influence it. Thirteen years after the acquittal of the Milanese [clubs], the investigation brings back the age-old question of capital gains in the offices of a prosecutor, just as [FIFA president] Infantino, only a couple of weeks ago, hypothesized the introduction of a mathematical algorithm to decide the player rating.
'Bone-sack interceptions, as they say in jargon, that is, without comment, without legal qualifications, are a simple transcription of speeches: drawing a conclusion of imputability from this is not permitted.' ... 'No, they should have opened a new referral and proceeded with a new trial. There are 14,000 pages of interceptions: congratulations to the two judges who managed to read them all in the space of a few weeks...' The Federal Court has also changed the charge: from article 31, which only provides for a fine, in article 4, the one on loyalty, which instead provides for penalty points... 'The change of crime is another highly questionable element: having brought up loyalty is a consequence of the accounting offense but it can represent a procedural defect even stronger. This proceeding has already undergone two levels of judgment and it would have already been serious to change the charge in the appeal process, i.e. in the second level: here instead we are faced with a change even in the revocation phase, when the judges have a much more limited power. The federal judge must never overflow into an alternative reconstruction of the established and disputed facts. In any case, the 15-point penalty appears difficult to understand, if related to the violation of the principle of sporting loyalty.'
Case #1 – Genoa, Udinese, Reggina (2008) ... Result? €400,000 fine for the companies. ... Case #2 – Sampdoria (2008) ... Result? Fine of €36,000 for the company. ... Case #3 – AC Milan and Inter (2008) ... Result? €90,000 fine for the companies. ... Case #4 – Chievo and Cesena (2018) ... Result? 3 penalty points for Chievo and 15 for Cesena. ... sentences not final as in the meantime the two companies went bankrupt.
'Consistently, the Federal Prosecutor in the hearing before the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal had requested the pecuniary sanction of the fine, of 800 thousand euros for Juventus and, gradually, for the other clubs. Requests then rejected in both levels of judgment.'
As the Gazzetta dello Sport has previously outlined, the practice of plusvalenza is undeniably of colossal importance in Italy. In 2018–19, the last season before Covid-19 hit, 20 Serie A clubs made a total of €699m in capital gains – more than any of the other 'Big Five' leagues. ... The difference is that while this affair does involve clubs in other countries, it is focused on Italy, and Juventus in particular.
The capital gains theme has been 'talked about' for decades and it is not a lever to which only Juventus have resorted, recently sentenced in the sports process. It is therefore inevitable to ask a question: why have they not been defined in advance of the rules of clear conduct so as to be able, subsequently, to check and punish severely those who do not respect them? ... the previous jurisprudentials highlighting that these behaviors have almost never been punished, not so much because the values of the crossed players had not been inflated, but rather for the difficulty of demonstrating it (not existing something similar to a market value, above all for younger players). We get to the point. Those who follow the investigation will be thinking: 'And no, for Juventus it is different, because being listed they should have applied Par. 45 of IAS 38 and not to register the capital gain!' But this is just a fig leaf. The sporting sentence condemns Juventus for having concealed the exchange nature of the crossed operations in order to avoid the risk of not being able to enroll the capital gain. ... Can you punish for this reason, despite the fact that Juventus have declared that they have never applied this accounting policy in the past (and therefore never declared in public budgets)? Even though this accounting treatment would seem to be applied by very few football clubs in Europe (Consob says at least two)? Despite no control body of the world of football and non-internal and external, has it ever contested the failure to apply to the three (now two) listed companies? But above all, can a company be punished for the failure to apply an accounting policy which, if considered the rule to be applied ... it would concern ... all football teams?
The journalist Carlo Nesti has his opinion on the 15-point penalty imposed on Juventus for the capital gains case: 'It seems to relive the days of Calciopoli, with the same reasons of legitimacy, but also of persistence. Surely the punishment, inflicted on Juventus, is obvious, in the light of 2 articles: the 4, which obliges to observe the principles of sporting loyalty, and the 31, which condemns the management and economic violation. We can discuss, if anything, the proportions of the penalty, whether they are fair, limited or you exaggerate. As in 2006, in any case, an inconsistency already emerges. How is it possible that other companies have not been sanctioned, when the phenomenon of capital gains was, and is, very widespread? Is it possible to make capital gains on your own? The answer, of course, is 'no', but the verdict, at least so far, does not seem to take this into account. Therefore, perplexities emerge about the umpteenth fury, as in the days of Calciopoli, towards the Black and White club.'
... and for this reason some hypothesize that the Court decided on the basis of art. 4, paragraph 1, of the sporting justice code, i.e. intended to sanction the behavior of Juventus managers as contrary to the principle of sporting loyalty to which every club and each member is bound. 'This, however, presupposes a modification, by the Federal Court, of the charge advanced, according to what is known from the news, by the Federal Prosecutor's Office. The Federal Judge has ample powers in matters of juridical qualification of the disputed fact, but this power must never overflow into an alternative reconstruction of the ascertained and disputed facts. In any case, the 15-point penalty would appear difficult to understand if related to the violation of the principle of sporting loyalty. Abnormal.'
The media have also been left in a state of shock by the FIGC ruling. It had been widely thought that Juve were in serious trouble – the resignation of the entire board was an ominous sign – but the severity of the sentence still took many by surprise. Indeed, it is worth noting that earlier on Friday Chine had only called for a nine-point penalty for Juve; instead, they were docked 15 points. ... They particularly wanted to know why only Juve had been punished, given it should, in theory, take two clubs to inflate a transfer fee. Remember, Sampdoria, Empoli, Genoa, Parma, Pisa, Pescara, Pro Vercelli and Novara were all absolved of any wrongdoing ... .
'Juventus Football Club and its legal team have carefully read and will analyse thoroughly the reasons, published a little while ago, of the decision of the United Sections of the Federal Court of Appeal. It is a document, predictable in content, in the light of the weighty decision, but vitiated by obvious illogicality, lack of motivation and unfoundedness in point of law, which the Company and the individuals will oppose with an appeal to the Guarantee College at CONI within the set deadlines. The validity of Juventus' reasons will be asserted firmly, while respecting the institutions that issued it.'
Juventus ask, principally, to the Board of Guarantee to cancel the contested decision for the inadmissibility of the appeal for revocation of the Federal Prosecutor's Office without postponement, not constituting the investigation documents sent by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Turin 'New facts' suitable for subverting the ratio decidendi of the revocated sentence. In the alternative, the club asks to cancel the decision for violation of the principles of the contradictory and the right trial sanctioned, as well as for violation of the right of defense. The appeal also proposes other reasons to request cancellation without postponement and also suggests 'canceling the sentence for violation of the principles of the right trial'. Regarding the sanction, Juve ask to cancel the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal for omitted motivation on the quantification of the penalties imposed in violation of Art. 12 CGS FIGC and in violation of the principle of proportionality in the sanctioning treatment. Finally, the Juventus club asks in the extreme subordinate to dispose of the postponement to the competent federal sports justice body, which will want — according to the principle of law sanctioned by the guarantee college — reforming the contested decision in favour of the applicant. In addition to that of the Juventus company, the Guarantee College of Guarantee received the appeals of the former Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli and the former sports director Fabio Paratici. CONI makes it official.
'Juventus Football Club and its legal team have carefully read and will analyse thoroughly the reasons, published a little while ago, of the decision of the United Sections of the Federal Court of Appeal. It is a document, predictable in content, in the light of the weighty decision, but vitiated by obvious illogicality, lack of motivation and unfoundedness in point of law, which the Company and the individuals will oppose with an appeal to the Guarantee College at CONI within the set deadlines. The validity of Juventus' reasons will be asserted firmly, while respecting the institutions that issued it.'
During the exposition of his defensive line, the Juventus lawyer Nicola Apa asked that the revocation procedure be rejected for a formal question. The Public Prosecutor's Office allegedly exceeded the time limit for presenting the request. As emerged from press articles, the Public Prosecutor's Office had contacted the Turin prosecutors on 26 October and on 27 October the news of a visit to Turin by a prosecutor's envoy had spread. So the first new facts would have come into the possession of the prosecution at the end of October. And the sporting justice code prescribes a 30-day deadline for submitting the revocation request, which arrived, however, only on December 22, i.e. 56 days later.
... the lawyer Giorgio Spallone, who on the appeal to the TAR by Federico Cherubini and Fabio Paratici, and not by Juventus, confirms: 'It was a strategy.' In short, it was not the directly Black and White club that disapplied the sports prejudicial – i.e. compliance with the three levels of judgment – given that the TAR itself claims that 'the appeal is certainly admissible also in terms of the absence of prejudicial sports.'
... while accepting the defensive thesis according to which 'there are no uniform and objective evaluation criteria of the actual value of the player.'
'How many contradictions in the margin of the note. At first glance, the irrelevance of this document with respect to the well-known sports dispute currently submitted to the judgment of the Collegio di Garanzia dello Sport at Coni is evident. In light of the above, two questions remain open. The first. The reason, increasingly due to the apparent irrelevance of the document, the persistent and repeated refusal to display it. ... The second consideration. This approach by the FIGC – rigorously defensive in relation to the refusal to display a document which, following an order from the TAR, later proved to be of little, if any, significance for the purposes of the dispute – is in clear contrast, if not contradiction, with the choice of the FIGC not to appear in the proceedings.'
The control body underlines how 'although the trading of players has guaranteed copious capital gains, it has generated very little liquidity, and how this phenomenon makes it difficult to appreciate the real correspondence between the prices agreed for the individual transactions and the real market value of the athletes.'
Judge Santoro, former President of the Federal Court of Appeal of the FIGC and of the Council of State, as an expert in the field of sports justice ... 'The reasons for the sentence of the Federal Court of Appeal have increased the doubts that I had already raised previously on the legitimacy of the revocation: to justify the reopening of the trial, new facts must arise which the judges identified in the telephone interceptions transmitted by the Turin Public Prosecutor' ... 'First of all, the interceptions cannot be used to prove accounting offences: in this case, the judges consider the capital gains, with artificial values given to the players, accounting offenses with which Juventus allegedly distorted the balance sheets.' ... 'To prove an accounting offense, technical advice is needed, which I have not seen when reading the pages of the reasons, because the judges do not have the competence in the matter: the lack of technical advice has also prevented the defendants from the right of defense . And then there is a second aspect of wiretapping.' ... 'Interceptions are not admissible both in the first phase of the revocation, the rescission phase, which requests the annulment of the contested provision, as I explained earlier, but also in the second phase, the rescission phase, in which a new provision is issued intended to replace the first.'
Among the other elements that emerge from the 99 pages of the appeal, the fact that the sentence is linked to an 'uncontested infringement' ... which evaluates it as unfounded because 'the capital gains from so-called cross transactions lead to a purely financial benefit but they do not produce any liquidity, which can be used for example in a shopping campaign.' One of the key points of the appeal concerns the conviction for something of which Juventus had not been accused: 'The federal court of appeal used probative elements from the criminal investigation to actually create a new illegal act against the defendants', it is the excerpt from the appeal reported by ANSA. These new allegations, according to the defense, would have violated the principle of due process and the right of defense. The charges unrelated to the referral, according to the club, are the 'hidden' invoice at Olympique Marseille and the Arthur-Pjanic exchange with Barcelona.
Of course there is a precedent that is also quite close in time: Milan and Inter ended up on trial in 2008 for the 2004 budgets, which ended up in the sights of the Judiciary for the usual capital gains. But they were acquitted because 'the fact does not constitute a crime'. The problem is the scientific definition of the value of a player in the transfer market. In short, there are no exact parameters for deciding that an evaluation is 'false', given that the number of factors and conditions that can influence it. Thirteen years after the acquittal of the Milanese [clubs], the investigation brings back the age-old question of capital gains in the offices of a prosecutor, just as [FIFA president] Infantino, only a couple of weeks ago, hypothesized the introduction of a mathematical algorithm to decide the player rating.
'Bone-sack interceptions, as they say in jargon, that is, without comment, without legal qualifications, are a simple transcription of speeches: drawing a conclusion of imputability from this is not permitted.' ... 'No, they should have opened a new referral and proceeded with a new trial. There are 14,000 pages of interceptions: congratulations to the two judges who managed to read them all in the space of a few weeks...' The Federal Court has also changed the charge: from article 31, which only provides for a fine, in article 4, the one on loyalty, which instead provides for penalty points... 'The change of crime is another highly questionable element: having brought up loyalty is a consequence of the accounting offense but it can represent a procedural defect even stronger. This proceeding has already undergone two levels of judgment and it would have already been serious to change the charge in the appeal process, i.e. in the second level: here instead we are faced with a change even in the revocation phase, when the judges have a much more limited power. The federal judge must never overflow into an alternative reconstruction of the established and disputed facts. In any case, the 15-point penalty appears difficult to understand, if related to the violation of the principle of sporting loyalty.'
'Consistently, the Federal Prosecutor in the hearing before the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal had requested the pecuniary sanction of the fine, of 800 thousand euros for Juventus and, gradually, for the other clubs. Requests then rejected in both levels of judgment.'
'Juventus Football Club and its legal team have carefully read and will analyse thoroughly the reasons, published a little while ago, of the decision of the United Sections of the Federal Court of Appeal. It is a document, predictable in content, in the light of the weighty decision, but vitiated by obvious illogicality, lack of motivation and unfoundedness in point of law, which the Company and the individuals will oppose with an appeal to the Guarantee College at CONI within the set deadlines. The validity of Juventus' reasons will be asserted firmly, while respecting the institutions that issued it.'
'Juventus Football Club and its legal team have carefully read and will analyse thoroughly the reasons, published a little while ago, of the decision of the United Sections of the Federal Court of Appeal. It is a document, predictable in content, in the light of the weighty decision, but vitiated by obvious illogicality, lack of motivation and unfoundedness in point of law, which the Company and the individuals will oppose with an appeal to the Guarantee College at CONI within the set deadlines. The validity of Juventus' reasons will be asserted firmly, while respecting the institutions that issued it.'