Reports: Andrea Agnelli, Entire Juventus Board Resigns – Black & White & Read All Over

UPDATE NO. 1: Juventus have now confirmed the resignation of the board in full.

Reports now indicate – and the team’s statement appears to confirm this – that the massive board resignation is prompted by the ongoing investigation into Juventus’ finances.

The investigation does not cover the “plusvalenza” scenario, which was rejected by sports courts earlier this year as unprovable. Instead, the team is in the crosshairs of something much easier to prove: commonplace financial fraud.

According to Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Football Italia), the development comes as the Turin prosecutor’s investigation into allegations of fake accounts during the pandemic reaches its climax.

At the height of the lockdown, the club claimed players gave up four months’ wages to help the club balance their books. The prosecutor’s office alleges that the players actually gave up far less than that and that Juve claimed the full amount on their financial statements while essentially paying them the rest under the table. This would have allowed the club to post balanced books while allowing both parties to avoid taxes. Since Juventus are a publicly traded company, this would have affected their share price as well.

This is a far more provable breach than the potential inflation of player values, especially given Juve’s status as a publicly traded company. Indeed, the resignations appear to have been ultimately triggered by a request for clarification of the team’s books by CONSOB, the body that oversees activity in the Italian stock market. This request led the board of directors to postpone the general meeting of shareholders scheduled for last week to the end of December. This meeting has again been postponed to January.

The club have also confirmed the appointment of Maurizio Scanavino as the team’s general manager. Scanavino is currently at the head of GEDI Gruppo Editoriale, publisher of many Italian newspapers including that of Turin La Stampa and La Republica. Exor has been the parent company of GEDI Gruppo Editoriale since 2020. Maurizio Arrivabene will remain in his position as CEO during the transition period.

And just like that, the World Cup broke free from the news of Juventus took a sudden turn.

According to widely circulated reports from Italy on Monday evening – with Goal Italia’s Romeo Agresti have the first helping hand – the entire Juventus board decided to resign after what is described as an ‘extraordinary board meeting’. It means club chairman Andrea Agnelli and vice-chairman Pavel Nedved are both absent, ending Agnelli’s more than ten-year tenure at the helm of the club his family has owned for decades. The same goes for Maurizio Arrivabene, who was brought in not only to show off his wide range of suits, but also to provide some stability following the departure of then director of football Fabio Paratici a year ago. two years. Arrivabene, however, is expected to stay during the transition.

According to Fabrice RomanoJuventus’ new board and ‘a new club structure’ will be named over the next few months.

Why this suddenly happened is not known at all. The timing seems a bit odd considering it comes at a time when the club are not playing and have had a relatively quiet World Cup break until Monday night.

But, there is still a lot of investigation into the plusvalenza case which has been hanging over the club for months now. How much of that influenced that decision remains to be seen and there will certainly be more reporting – or perhaps even a statement from Juventus – about it in the hours and days to come.

Check back for more on this developing story.