Paco D’Onofrioprofessor at the University of Bologna and lawyer expert in sports law, spoke to AllJuve of the Juventus earthquake and the possible implications:
What can Juventus risk regarding the file opened by the FIGC on salaries?
“For accounting irregularities, regardless of the seriousness from a criminal point of view, which pertains to a different and distinct legal system from the federal one, the sanction envisaged is disqualification for the guilty managers and a fine, i.e. a monetary penalty, for the club involved. Only in the event that the irregularity served to register for a championship in which the club would not otherwise have been able to participate, then relegation is even envisaged, but it is certainly not the case in question. Furthermore, Article 31, paragraph 3, of the FIGC sports justice code, provides for the hypothesis in which the accounting irregularities concern the payment of players’ salaries, punishable, also in this case, with a fine or, in the more serious with one or more penalty points”.
Can there be any kind of condemnation?
“The premise for the conviction, in the latter case, is that the Company violated an existing federal provision which, as far as I know, however, was never specifically deliberated. It does not seem to me that, at the time, no rules have been adopted to regulate the health (and accounting) emergency period of the second part of the 2019/20 championship, which should have regulated the exceptional situation of a sports season extended by two months and previously suspended for a long period and which has led to the need for the clubs to reformulate the salaries of the players. It would be useful, in fact, to also know which accounting methods have been used by the other clubs in Serie A”.
So if you feel like reassuring the slightly worried Juventus fan over the last few hours, as he had already done previously on capital gains?
“The FIGC Public Prosecutor’s Office did a good job by deciding to open an investigation file, because the matter undoubtedly deserves further investigation, which the Federation has the power and duty to carry out. It should also be added, however, that if the conditions I have not met mentioned above and which, in my opinion, are not so evident from what I have been able to learn from the news only circulated in the media, the liability of a Company does not appear so clearly defined, a bit like what happened in the case of capital gains, which ended without the ascertainment of an actual irregularity”.
Did you find correct the modus operandi of the BoD who resigned en bloc on Monday?
“Undoubtedly a gesture that I imagine was animated by a sense of responsibility, probably also in order to preserve the serenity of the team in the vicinity of the resumption of the championship, which will allow the previous administrators to concentrate on the procedural defense they will have to face, in the face of formalized disputes by the state prosecutor and possibly also by the federal one”.
