Juventus mired in scandal again as Agnelli and board resigns

Scandal. Titles. More scandal. Successes and controversy are never far apart at Juventus, which is back in crisis mode fol‐ lowing the resignation of club president Andrea Agnelli and the team's entire board of directors following an investigation by Turin prosecutors into alleged false accounting.

The move comes 16 years after the "Calciopoli" refereeing scan‐ dal that saw Juventus, a record 36‐time Italian champion, de‐ moted to Serie B and stripped of two Serie A titles.

In between there was a record run of nine consecutive Serie A titles, five Italian Cup trophies and five Italian Super Cup victo‐ ries.

The one big prize Juventus has consistently missed out on is the Champions League, with its only two titles in Europe's premier competition coming in 1985 and 1996.

It's pursuit of that coveted con‐ tinental trophy was what led Ju‐ ventus to sign Cristiano Ronaldo in a 100 million euro ($103 mil‐ lion) transfer from Real Madrid in 2018. The hefty transfer fee and Ronaldo's 31 million euro ($32 million) salary created sig‐ nificant debts for the Turin club, though, which were exacerbated by the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Turin prosecutors have appar‐ ently discovered more secret payments to Ronaldo that were not reported by Juventus, which is listed on the Milan stock ex‐ change.

Ronaldo left Juventus for Man‐ chester United last year.

"Juventus will continue to col‐ laborate and cooperate with the supervisory and industry au‐ thorities, without prejudice to the defense of its rights in rela‐ tion to the challenges raised against the company's financial statements and press releases by Consob (the stock exchange's regulatory body) and the public prosecutor's office," Juventus said in a statement announcing the resignations.

Agnelli, vice president Pavel Nedved and CEO Maurizio Arriv‐ abene are among 15 people who could face a trial for alleged false accounting and irregularities in player transfers.

Prosecutors have been investi‐ gating since last year whether Ju‐ ventus cashed in on illegal commissions from transfer and loans of players. The case is also exploring if investors were mis‐ led with invoices being issued for non‐existent transactions to demonstrate income that in turn could be deemed false account‐ ing.

The case involves player con‐ tracts, transfers and agent deal‐ ings between 2018 and 2020.

At the start of the pandemic, Ju‐ ventus said 23 players agreed to reduce their salary for four months to help the club through the crisis. But prosecutors claim the players gave up only one month's salary.

A shareholders meeting rescheduled for Dec. 27 was postponed to Jan. 18 to choose a new board.