Credit: AFP
After their loss against Sevilla in the Europa League semifinals, the bad news for Juventus doesn’t seem to end as the Italian football federation has recently charged the club and seven former team directors with alleged fraud for the way they handled player salary cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic forced clubs from all around the world to cut their players' wages and expenditures. Juventus had announced that 23 players agreed to reduce their salaries for four months to help the club. The prosecutors now claim that the players forego only one month’s salary. Former Juventus president Andrea Agnelli, former vice president Pavel Nedved and former sports director Fabio Paratici are among the 11 people who are charged.
The club has declined to make any comments on the situation. Italy’s Football Association said that the other teams with who Juventus was allegedly holding undue relationships are Sampdoria, Atalanta, Sassuolo, Udinese, Bologna, and Cagliari but added that they were still being investigated.
Juventus appealed to the Football Federation's appeals court for a new sentence, which led to the suspension of their 15-point reduction in the Serie A points table for false accounting last month . The off-field troubles have not done the club good as they crashed out of the Europa League and sit second in the Serie A. Any point reduction would push them back down in the mid-table. It will also deprive the club of good players as they will be reluctant to come to a club not playing Champions League football and be shady in dealing with the salaries of players.
