Italians put fraud spotlight on Spurs’ £47m Romero deal

TOTTENHAM have been dragged into the fraud allegations against Juventus, with Italian police investigating the transfer history of summer signing Cristian Romero and the role of the club’s managing director Fabio Paratici. Sportsmail has been told the £47million deal for the Argentine defender in August — the same day he left Juventus for Atalanta for just £13.5m — is one of 42 transfers being scrutinised by police amid claims of false accounting. Paratici, who joined Tottenham last summer and was instrumental in the appointments of Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte, is one of six past and present Juventus officials being investigated, including president Andrea Agnelli and legendary former player Pavel Nedved. The club’s offices in Turin and Milan were raided by police last Friday with player contracts, invoices and financial statements taken as evidence following claims that Juventus falsely recorded the values of transfers between 2019 and 2021 to enable them to comply with Financial Fair Play regulations. Paratici was directly involved in the deal that brought Romero to Tottenham, continuing a close association with a player he signed for Juventus from Genoa two and a half years ago. The 23-year-old never played for Juventus in two years at the club, but his transfer valuations attracted attention from the Italian police. Juventus paid Genoa £22m for Romero in July 2019, but immediately sent him back on loan for the season. He spent the following campaign at Atalanta, who

paid a £3.4m loan fee. On a bizarre day last August, Atalanta confirmed they had signed Romero permanently for £13.5m before sending him out on loan to Tottenham, who also secured the option to buy him for £47m. The sums involved raised eyebrows, with Atalanta set to make a profit of £33.5m in a single season. Other Juventus deals being probed include Manchester City’s £27.4m signing of Joao Cancelo two years ago in a transfer that saw Danilo move the other way in partexchange, as well as another swap deal that saw Bosnia midfielder Miralem Pjanic join Barcelona with Brazilian midfielder Arthur Melo moving to Juventus. Tottenham have held talks with Paratici about the matter since reports of the Juventus police raid emerged over the weekend. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the Premier League club.