Juventus are not doing well on the pitch – but they are doing even worse off it! Fifteen years after the famous Calciopoli affair, when Juventus paid the price for match-fixing, bribing the referees and a bunch of other criminal acts, black clouds hover over Turin again.Financial police raided the club premises a few days ago and opened up a ‘Pandora’s box’ from which a lot of unpleasant information popped out. Juventus is under scrutiny of the investigative bodies because of the false invoices that the club issued in the previous two years during transfer windows and signing contracts with new players. Six current and former Bianconeri officials have participated in fraudulent transactions and invoices worth over 55 million USD.Juventus will have to justify some moves which caught the attention of many in previous years and which were publicly suspected of not being legal.Top dogs play with smile on their face! Napoli hammer their old boss at Stadio Diego MaradonaIn previous years, the Turin giant has demonstrated strength both on and off the pitch in suspicious transfer operations. They attributed ingenious qualities to Juventus executives because of the many free transfers they made, but it turns out that instead of compensating other clubs, they set aside money by filling the pockets of agents for lucrative commissions in suspicious transactions.To start with – transfers in which Juventus pumped up prices of their players are under scrutiny. Which was obvious even back then. While the competition, such as Inter, Milan and other clubs, had to watch out for financial fair play and take care of how much they can spend on players, Juventus publicly mocked those rules and laughed in everyone’s face. They thought in Turin that they had found loopholes in the laws and that they could do whatever they wanted.The Neroverdi are easily inspired by big-name opponents! Sassuolo humiliate Milan and their captainPerhaps the most obvious ‘loophole’ is the now famous Pjanić/Arthur swap with Barcelona. Juventus had to balance their financial books and make room for purchasing new players. They did it in agreement with the unfortunate Catalan giant, where a financial fire was burning at the time, making them ready for any kind of a deal. And through misty actions two sides came to an agreement worth unrealistic 145 million USD. Juventus estimated Pjanić at 66 million and Barca set a price tag of 79 million on Arthur – even though their real values were not even half that much. Many at the time wondered how Juventus and Barcelona could set such high prices for the two midfielders.Zapata inflicts more pain on Juve after police raid over suspect player transfersAdditionally, another 42 Juventus transfers in previous years are under investigation. Certain players’ prices were pumped up on purpous in order to present them in club books as more valuable than they are. For example, the anonymous Marley Ake was brought from Marseilles for as much as 9 million USD, while the even more anonymous Franco Tongya went in the opposite direction for the same amount. A certain Alejandro Marques was brought from Barcelona for 9.25 million, while Matheus Henrique was sent to Barca for 9 million USD.The young Nicolo Rovella was brought in from Genoa for as much as 20 million USD – but only after Manolo Portanova and Elia Petrelli went in the opposite direction 11 and 9 million – bearing in mind their real value combined is at least three times less. Senegalese Mamadou Kaly Sene went to Basel for 4.5 million, and Albian Hajdari came from the Swiss club for 5.4 million. Juventus sold goalkeeper Emil Audero to Sampdoria for as much as 22.5 million, Daouda Peeters for 4.5 million, Erik Gerbi for 1.5 million USD… And a bunch of other anonymous players whose value has nothing to do with the actual market price. At the same time, the Old Lady “bought” anonymous Erasmo Mule and Giacomo Vrioni from Sampdoria for a total of 7.3 million USD. It is obvious that these are fictitious prices that have nothing to do with reality.Premises of Juventus raided by the police! Over 55 million US embezzled?Even the transfer of Joao Cancelo, who went to Manchester City for an unrealistic 73 million USD, is being checked thoroughly.The investigators called the whole system “Paratici’s management” because it referred to the moves of the then director who works at Tottenham today. But Paratici cannot be named the only culprit, as it is clear from the wiretapped conversations that club president Andrea Agnelli knew about the whole mechanism and that he put pressure on Paratici to provide the club more capital gains from inflated prices in transfers that would then enable the club with financial maneuvers to buy and bring more expensive players.Tue, 22.45: (9.00) SALERNITANA (4.90) JUVENTUS (1.40)Even Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract is controversial. Investigations have found out about the existence of a “private contract” which “theoretically should not exist”. Juventus had a private contract with the Portuguese, according to which they paid him more money so that the official salary amount would be shown as lower and so that the tax would be lower. A similar situation can be seen with the contract of the Argentine stopper Cristian Romero, which was bought from Genoa for 29 million USD, he never played for Juventus and went on loan to Atalanta, which bought him and sold him to Tottenham this summer (where Paratici has already arrived as director) for 56 million USD.Juventus’ arrangements with agents who received more from the Turin club than from others are also under scrutiny. Mino Raiola collected close to 12 million USD through the transfer of Matthijs De Ligt, Jorge Mendes got 14 million when Ronaldo signed and Reza Fazeli, Emre Can’s agent, charged a commission of as much as 20 million USD, even though the German arrived from Liverpool as a free agent!Wed, 8/12, 20.45: (1.22) JUVENTUS (7.00) MALMO (15.00)The investigation and interrogations continue today, and John Elkann, the first man of the business empire of the Agnelli family, hired a team of expensive lawyers to help his cousin Andrea Agnelli get out of an unpleasant situation.If all the suspicions of the investigators turn out to be true, Juventus will probably face severe penalties – from deducting points to even being expelled from the league.At the same time, as mentioned, Juventus are in a crisis regarding results on the pitch. Local media write today that Juventus could financially sacrifice De Ligt and Federico Chiesa and sell them in order to compensate for the losses if they fail to qualify for the Champions League. Although until recently it seemed that the club was on stable financial feet, it seems that a lot of things in the background were done in a ‘shady’ manner.
