Council turned off in Turin – Sport – Kommersant

The board of directors of Juventus Turin, led by club president Andrea Agnelli, has resigned. The departure of the entire leadership of the famous Italian team was the result of accusations of fraudulent accounting and market manipulation, brought against the club’s bosses by the Turin prosecutor’s office.

The most titled football club in Italy, Juventus, suddenly lost all leadership. On a Monday late at night official website of the club It was reported that the entire board of directors of Juventus, including club president Andrea Agnelli, had resigned. The statement notes that the decision was made after the board received some recommendations from independent experts in the field of law and financial reporting. In a letter to Juventus staff, Mr. Agnelli noted that the club was going through a difficult moment and his management felt that it would be better for everyone to leave together in order to allow the new management team to turn the situation in a positive direction.

Andrea Agnelli also promised that he would still work for the benefit of the club and quoted Friedrich Nietzsche as writing that “those who were seen dancing seemed insane to those who could not hear the music”.

The new composition of the leadership of Juventus should appear in January. Until then, Juventus CEO Maurizio Arrivabene will be in charge of the team’s affairs in the status of acting.

Andrea Agnelli did not explain what exactly are the difficulties of the moment experienced by the club, but it is clear that we are talking about the so-called “Operation Prism” – deed, investigated by the prosecutor’s office of Turin. Back in October, Turin prosecutor Anna Maria Loretto notified the Juventus board of directors that the agency she headed had completed an investigation involving 15 high-ranking club employees, including Andrea Agnelli, club vice president Pavel Nedved and club general director Maurizio Arrivabene.

Claims against the Juventus bosses arose after the authorities studied the club’s accounts for 2018, 2019 and 2020. The authorities considered that the residents of Turin had falsified financial statements during this period. The audit revealed a significant gap between the real and declared income of the club. It turned out that Juventus deliberately overestimated the reported transfer value of the players, which, according to the prosecutor’s office, caused damage to the club’s shareholders: Juventus shares are traded on the Milan Stock Exchange.

In total, the volume of additions, according to the investigation, amounted to €155 million.

At the same time, despite the alleged additions to the accounting records, Juventus, according to the information provided by them, is not in the best financial position. In September, Turintsy reported record losses. In the 2021-2022 financial year, they amounted to €254.3 million. The previous anti-record was set a season earlier, then the club’s losses were €44.4 million less. Not surprisingly, Andrea Agnelli was the most active supporter of the project. Superleague, which envisaged that 12 of the leading clubs in Europe would create a new tournament with huge prizes. The project lived a little more than a day, falling apart after all six English teams left it under pressure from the fans. However, formally the Superleague is alive, and Andrea Agnelli has repeatedly said that the project will be completed.

For the sake of the project, Agnelli even actually broke off relations with the president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), Alexander Ceferin, who is the godfather of his daughter.

But now, among the heavyweights in the world of football management, only the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Perez, another active supporter of the creation of a tournament outside the control of UEFA, will have to support the project.

Andrea Agnelli took charge of Juventus in 2010, becoming the fourth member of the Agnelli family to hold the presidency. During this time, Juventus has issued a series of nine consecutive Italian championships won (2011/12-2019/20). In addition, Turintsy twice, in 2015 and 2017, reached the Champions League final.

Alexander Petrov