Juventus and salary maneuver: it all ends in tarallucci and wine. When sports justice adapts to politics

The second, long-awaited trial at Juventus for the famous salary maneuver it ended a bit tarallucci and wine: 700 thousand euro fine, practically a slap for a football club, and the tomb stone on appeals. The FIGC kept the point in a litigation judicial very slippery, he punished the culprits and breathes a big sigh of relief for having closed this once and for all bad story full of pitfalls (you can understand it well from the words of the president Gravina: “It’s the most beautiful result of Italian football”). Juve dodged a second sting for rather accusations evidentcan plan the future and, saving the qualification to the Conferencealso ensures the possibility of discounting a possible UEFA disqualification in the cups already on next season, without missing another year in Champions. All happily ever after, more or less.

There is still a huge concern about functioning from the justice sporty, not so much for how the story ended but for how it unfolded. If we had been told six months ago that the scandal would lead to the Juventus out of the cups for a year, probably many would have agreed on the fairness of the verdict. The problem is how we got there, with lo cloying ballet on penalty points and then this plea bargain who knows so much about compromise. A heavy fine has been imposed for the capital gainsa complex subject subject to various interpretations, while the maneuver salarieswhich in everyone’s opinion was the dispute more serious move to Juve and its former managers. But it’s not that having already been punished severely for one crime makes you less responsible than the other.

It is evident that the two events, if not on the procedural planhave welded into the assessment politics. Because this is what it was about, making everything into a single account. Today’s plea bargain is the offspring of yesterday’s capital gains ruling, yet they were two different proceedings. There Figc she was content that she had achieved hers objective (“punish” the club’s conduct in a broader sense) and accepted a low-key deal on the second strand, without even bothering to save appearances with a sanction maggiore: there was talk of a “maxi-fine” but 700 thousand euros for a top club are tiny (even without the one-third discount the prosecutor’s request would have stopped at one million). The same Juventus she resorted to a plea deal only when she realized she had lost the game on the capital gains. And the suspicion arises (although there will never be proof) that without the sensational defeats against Empoli e Milan and a Juve running for Championstoday we would not be talking about one small fine but of other points of penalty.

We haven’t figured out what the exact penalty is for capital gains fictitious: the art. 4 on sports loyalty remains a legal institution totally discretionary and in the hands of the judges, as evidenced by the same quantification ex post of the penalty points saddled with Juve formulated in the motivations of the Court of Appeal, it is not clear on the basis of what criteria. While passing the messageand also a precedent rather dangerousthat parallel agreements can be stipulated with members, without depositing them in the locations officers, passing it practically smooth. The only article that included a serious automatismcredible (art. 31.: fine “from one to three times the unlawfully agreed amount”) has not been applied in this affair.

The paradox is that in the end the Juventus he still pays what he had to pay. The relegation to Serie Bwhich has been talked about so much inappropriately, has never been seriously in discussionand – let’s face it – it would not even have been congruous: the code provides for it only in the event of defects on the regular registration to the championship, and no one can argue that Juve’s Lambs could not have participated in Serie A without the accounting benefits of capital gains and the salary maneuver. Reasoning with extreme concretenessa year out of the cups (which incidentally means a collateral damage by tens of millions of euros) is in any case a more than severe penalty. Probably the only possible correct conclusion. Then the justice it’s another thing.

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