The last time Juventus played in the group stage of the Europa League was in the 2010/2011 season, and now that competition would be a premium for Italy’s most trophy-winning football club. After the penalty of deducting 15 points due to financial manipulations related to the transfers of football players, the Turin club sank to 10th place in the table, and is now in a very difficult situation. The team will play the first game since the club was officially sentenced this week at 22:45 against Atalanta, in the 19th round of Serie A.This collapse of Juventus is a surprise only to those who have not closely followed the events of Italian football in the last few years. Because there were obvious signs that something was seriously wrong at the club for anyone who looked in the direction of Turin. The crucial misstep was made after two defeats in the Champions League finals, in 2015 and 2017, when they took a risk in Turin with increased investment to take that last step. In 2018, Cristiano Ronaldo was hired for a huge amount, during that transitional period more than 250,000,000 euros were spent only on compensations, and very quickly the corona virus pandemic happened and the whole project collapsed.##EDITORS_CHOICE##After all, the crisis is best reflected through the value of shares. The entire brand of Juventus, including the name, logo, real estate and all selections, was worth 1,700,000,000 euros in September 2018. That was the highest point of the Italian giant on the stock market, and just five years later the entire club is worth only 700,000,000 euros. So, a whole billion was lost, although in the period between 2019 and 2021, investors directly pumped about 700,000,000 euros from their accounts into the club!At least that’s what the papers say, which the club’s management had to present publicly. Two huge payments were recorded, in December 2019 it amounted to 300,000,000 euros, and then in December 2021, 400,000,000. That turned on the alarm lights in Italy, which is why in May 2021 the prosecutor’s office in Turin launched an investigation under the name Prisma.In the meantime, 14,000 pages of material were collected, conversations eavesdropped, bugs were planted, electronic and paper documents were studied… And the prosecution very quickly collected enough to prove that the club systematically falsified paperwork in the period from 2018 to 2021.After that, an official indictment was launched, against numerous persons from the very top of the club. Starting with former sports director Fabio Paratici and his legal advisor Cesar Gabassi, all the way to president Andrea Agnelli, who resigned at the end of November, along with ten other board members.Juventus new logo pic.twitter.com/J7OAwhSopx— Troll Football (@TrollFootball) January 21, 2023 One of Agnelli’s conversations with John Elkann, the chairman of the board of directors of Exor Group, which controls the club, was also leaked to the public.”We used a lot of the revenue, but the market broke. We took a risk, and the management board knew that we had adjusted the numbers,” Agnelli said, to which Elkann replied: “Yes, but our directors overdid it.”One of the transfers that is claimed to have been used for “money laundering”, i.e. correcting the balance in the books, is the departure of the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team player Miralem Pjanić to Barcelona in the summer of 2020. Allegedly, the black and whites received 60,000,000 euros for the transfer of the midfielder, who played only 30 matches (1,295 minutes) in Spain before ending up in the United Arab Emirates via Turkey. However, in the same transfer window, Arthur Melo moved from Barcelona to Juventus, and the value of that transfer is estimated at 76,000,000 euros. Arthur is currently on loan at Liverpool, for whom he has played 13 minutes in the Champions League and 63 in the League Cup this season, without a single appearance in the Premier League. Allegedly, Liverpool paid 4,500,000 euros to Juventus in the fall, so that they could borrow the 26-year-old Brazilian.No joke! A day after they were docked 15 points, Juve treated their fans to a 15% ticket price reductionIn the office of the sports director of the Old Lady, Federico Cherubini, the prosecution found the “black book” of his predecessor Paratici, who in the meantime started working at Tottenham. Reportedly, the two continued to work together to improve Juventus’ balance sheet. After all, in January 2021, two Old Lady football players arrived in London in a package. Rodrigo Bentancur in a transfer worth 19,000,000 euros, and Dejan Kulusevski was loaned by Tottenham until the summer of 2023 for 10,000,000 euros.Anyway, Juventus were punished, and the people who brought it to this situation did not escape the sanctions either. Paratici was banned for two and a half years from holding positions in Italian football. Andrea Agnelli and Maurizio Arrivabene were sanctioned for two years, Federico Cherubini for one year and four months, while Pavel Nedved was ‘lucky’ with an eight-month ban.Can Ademola Lookman continue his excellent form for Atalanta when they hurt wounded lions, Juventus ? Tonight’s #ETGametoWatch kicks off @ 2:45pm ET 🇨🇦🇺🇸, 8:45pm 🇳🇬#Lookman #JuventusAtalanta #EaglesTracker 🦅🇳🇬 pic.twitter.com/lWFglqYjNN— Home of Nigerian Footballers (@EaglesTrackerNG) January 22, 2023 Meanwhile, Juventus moved on with new management led by Gianluca Ferrero. So far, no transfers have been made this winter, to or from the Allianz Stadium.So let’s see what kind of mood Massimiliano Allegri’s team will be in for today’s match with Atalanta. He was negatively affected by the punishment no doubt, but also by the debacle that the Old Lady suffered in the last round of the championship away from home in Naples – the league leaders Napoli defeated Juventus 5-1.After that, Juventus didn’t do that good in the Italian Cup, last Thursday. They won in the round of 16 against Monza 2-1, breaking their resistance only at the end of the match. Admittedly, Allegri tried with a combined team.For Atalanta, Juventus’ penalty was great news. Now they have practically made their way to the fourth place, the last one that leads to the Champions League. They have the same number of points as Lazio and Roma, 34 each, and Juventus is 12 points behind them… Due to the new situation, the Turin team is in a position where it practically cannot lose a single game against its direct competitors for Europe. If Bianconeri want to play there. Juve are now mathematically closer to being relegated to Serie B than playing with the elite.⚪️⚫️ @juventusfcen and @Atalanta_BC 🔵 numbers in a nutshell so far this season in the #SerieA💎 ahead of their crunch tie this weekend 👀 pic.twitter.com/U3T3LgU05y— Lega Serie A (@SerieA_EN) January 20, 2023 “This is a big game for us. We need to end the first half of the competition on a high note, because after the penalty we have to gather our ranks and roll up our sleeves. It is important to focus only on football and not on events beyond our control. We still have a lot of points left, 60 more points are in the game. We will go step by step, we will not give up,” said Allegri before the meeting with Atalanta.Juventus will certainly appeal the punishment, Allegri hopes that it will be at least slightly reduced. Certainly, the final decision will definitely be known only in two months, until then Juventus will certainly lack the 15 points they collected earlier.New president Ferrero and general manager Maurizio Scannavino visited the first team training on Friday to talk live with the players about the new situation.The worst thing for Juventus is that this whole scandal will not end there. UEFA has now launched its own investigation to determine whether Juventus falsified the documents it submitted to the European Football Association when applying for a European licence. If it turns out that they did, the club faces a multi-year suspension from European competitions. Let’s not forget that the Juventus management led by Andrea Agnelli was the biggest proponent of the creation of the European Super League, an independent competition of the richest, which would be played independently of UEFA.SERIE ASaturdayHellas Verona – Lecce 2-0 (1-0)/Depaoli 40, Lazovic 54/Salernitana – Napoli 0-2 (0-1)/Di Lorenzo 45+3, Osimhen 48/Fiorentina – Torino 0-1 (0-1)/Miranchuk 33/SundaySampdoria – Udinese 0-0 IN PROGRESS17.00: (2.30) Monza (3.35) Sassuolo (3.10)20.00: (4.80) Spezia (3.60) Roma (1.85)22.45: (2.25) Juventus (3.35) Atalanta (3.50)Monday20.30: (1.95) Bologna (3.40) Cremonese (4.10)22.45: (1.30) Inter (6.00) Empoli (11.0)Tuesday22.45: (3.30) Lazio (3.35) Milan (2.35)***odds are subject to change
