Napoli stand accused of inflating player costs in their deal for Victor Osimhen while Juventus reportedly had ‘fake’ capital gains of €60m. The trial is set to get underway tomorrow with a number of clubs under spotlight of the Italian football association, the FIGC.
Italian football finance website Calcio e Finanza report that they have had access to paperwork submitted in the court filings, which show inflated capital gains (plusvalenze) in a number of exchange deals. In effect, teams have reportedly traded players but registered them at inflated vlaues when the real market value of the players is considerably less. The benefit to clubs is that it enables them to balance their books for the financial year by showing amounts moved around.
One of the cases under investigation is Napoli’s transfer of Osimhen which was valued at €71.2m but €20.1m of that was made up of the exchange of four players.
The clearest example was Napoli’s deal with Lille for Osimhen, which was officially for €71.2m, of which €20.1m was made up of four player exchanges.
The four players in question, Orestis Karnezis, Ciro Palmieri, Claudio Manzi and Luigi Liguori were actually worth €470,000, which puts the inflated cost of the transfers close to €19m.
The inflated figures massively benefited Ligue 1 side Lille as they were in dire financial straits at the time, and allowed them to register a massive profit from Osimhen’s sale to Napoli.
Juventus are accused along the same lines, with a total €60.3m in reported non-existent profits, including transfers such as Emil Audero’s transfer to Sampdoria which was allegedly inflated by €7m, along with a host of other squad and youth team players.
Both clubs are expected to be handed hefty fines but will avoid a points penalty.
