Juventus of Turin, which on April 17 occupied a place in Serie A outside the European Cup zone, three days later suddenly found itself among the main contenders for the Champions League. Such an incredible leap was made possible by the fact that the club partially won the appeal in the case of financial abuse and regained the 15 points previously deducted from it. The website DailySports.net suggests once again recalling the history of this scandal.
In November 2022, the news broke that several Juventus managers and executives were grossly violating financial reporting requirements. The amount of abuse amounted to about € 50 million. Due to the information received, the police searched the Turin and Milan offices of the club in order to find documents necessary for the investigation.
At the end of January 2023, the Federal Court of Appeal decided to remove 15 points from the Old Lady this season. As a result, the club immediately dropped to tenth place, although before that the team was third. The punishment also included the suspension of a number of senior Juventus executives for between 8 and 24 months. Representatives of the club immediately announced an appeal.
On April 20, the Italian Collegium for Guarantees in Sports (CONI) temporarily granted Juventus’s request to cancel the deduction of 15 points in the championship. The team is returned tournament points at least until the next meeting. For Turin club rivals in the fight for the Champions League this is very bad news. Even if the sanctions still come into force, then, given the high likelihood of delaying the proceedings, they can be postponed to next season.
After the return of points, Juventus immediately climbed to third place in the Italian championship. In addition to it, in the Champions League zone today are:
- “Napoli”
- “Lazio”
- “Roma”.
Followed by Milan and Inter. Interestingly, both of these clubs still have chances to get into the Champions League as the winner of the tournament. One of them will definitely be in the final, as the teams will play each other at the 1/2 stage.
Juventus fans want to financially punish the federation
Turin fans also decided to respond to the sanctions imposed on Juventus. In response to the deprivation of the club of 15 points, they called on all its fans in Italy to boycott the Serie A pay-per-view on DAZN and Sky. The massive unsubscribing of these services can hit the financial well-being of the football federation (FIGC) and clubs hard. Almost half of its income FIGC (47% – Daily Sports) receives from selling audiovisual rights.
The protest mechanism looks something like this. If 500,000 people stop paying for broadcasts at the same time, it will cost the TV people more than €155 million. The exact number of Juventus fans who are DAZN and Sky subscribers is unknown, but officially there are more than 8 million Old Lady fans registered in the country, so the impact can be palpable.
