Juventus have officially responded to the investigation into false capital gains by Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office by publishing a statement, refuting the claims. The Bianconeri stand accused of falsifying financial statements, with claims from the Prosecutor’s Office that there is a ‘substantial gap’ between the real figures and those published by the club in their financial statements for 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The accusation relates to transfers with allegations that certain players had inflated values to produce capital gains in the budget. The official statement from Juventus reads:
Juventus Football Club S.p.A. (‘Juventus’ or the ‘Company’) announces that yesterday evening, Monday 24 October, it received notification of a notice of conclusion of preliminary investigations and a notice of investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Turin, with reference to the allegation of certain offences against the Company pursuant to Legislative Decree 231/2001, as well as against some of its current and former representatives. The start of the investigation was communicated to the market by means of a press release on 27 November 2021.
“Juventus remains convinced, also taking into account the in-depth legal and accounting investigations carried out by the Company with the help of its consultants and the legal and technical-accounting opinions acquired by the Company, that it has acted in compliance with the laws and regulations governing the preparation of financial reports, in accordance with the applicable accounting principles and related application criteria and in line with international practice in the football industry.
“The accusatory hypotheses put forward by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, partly modified with respect to the original allegations, refer to alleged offences of false corporate communications, false communications addressed to the market, obstruction of the exercise of public supervisory authorities (Consob, in this case) and fraudulent declaration through the use of invoices for non-existent transactions. On the basis of the summary information available at present, the facts that are the subject of the measure concern the financial statements as at 30/6/2019, 30/6/2020 and 30/6/2021 and relate to transactions improperly called ‘exchange’ of rights to the sports performance of football players and agreements to reduce and supplement the remuneration of registered personnel concluded in the financial years 2019/2020, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022.
“The Company and its representatives to whom the notice is addressed may, within twenty days, inspect and extract copies of the investigation documents pursuant to Article 415-bis of the Italian Criminal Code for the purposes of exercising their rights of defence.”
