From Cristiano Ronaldo to Higuain, there are about 25 Juventus players or former footballers – none of whom have been investigated – Turin’s public prosecutor intends to work on his relationship with Juventus FC as part of the investigation into the club’s accounts. The list also includes Coach Sarri. This is derived from the information that prosecutors provided to Guardia di Finanza at the time of the searches two days ago. Part of the job was to search for any files on PCs and in the Clouds for files with keywords related to players’ names.
Juventus player Paulo Dybala is at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Turin, to be heard as a person with knowledge of the facts related to the investigation into the accounts of Juventus FC. Dybala is the first player to be heard from the owners of the “Prisma” investigation, prosecutors Ciro Sartorello, Mario Bandoni and Marco Gianoglio. Juventus President Andrea Agnelli, Vice President Pavel Nedved and five other executives and former directors have been on the suspect’s registry since last November for issues related to capital gains from the sale of players. Yesterday, the judges launched a new front of investigations into the players’ students, which prompted the financial police to carry out searches in Turin, Milan and Rome. In particular, the investigators are targeting the agreement on salary cuts that Juventus players reached with Juventus FC in March 2020, in the midst of the first wave of the pandemic.
Juventus’ “salary maneuver” is in the crosshairs of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Turin. The financial police, on the advice of prosecutors, carried out a series of searches in the capital of Piedmont, Milan and Rome. It is an evolution of the survey of capital gains – €282m in three years – which last winter led to Juventus’s top managers being listed as suspects. The budgets for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 semesters have been taken. This time the accounting method was highlighted which, according to what was leaked by the newspapers at the time, was taken to avoid the effects of the economic crisis that swept the football world due to the pandemic: the postponement to the next year of players’ wages for a period of four months. The judges want to understand whether the procedure followed is correct from an accounting point of view. Their idea is that the cuts and the additions were agreed at the same time. Then, the two items will be arranged in two different budgets: in the first cuts were introduced, with the consequent reduction in salary-related costs, and in subsequent mergers. An incorrect procedure, according to investigators, because the company knew well in advance that it would have to pay the athletes. From the investigation papers, it appears that prosecutors investigating Juventus have come across the “practice” of keeping some confidential documents outside headquarters and then proceeding to “destroy” them once the purpose of the “escrow” has been exhausted. Hence the searches, which included studies and offices of lawyers and agents who were interested in the interests of the players. In connection with the issue of capital gains, President Andrea Agnelli, Representative Pavel Nedved and five other people, including former executives and executives, were investigated. Juventus is called into question as a legal entity, and on the criminal justice front, in the event of a conviction, there is a huge financial risk. Following the Covisoc report, the FIFA Federal Prosecutor is also dealing with capital gains, which informed Juventus on February 21 of the conclusion of the investigation. The judges were also interested in an alleged private agreement between Juventus and Cristiano Ronaldo, which they found traces in an objection process, but which, in the case of an investigation, would not have yet come to light.
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