The Old Lady is going to have a heart attack when she sees what her caretakers have been getting up to. Juventus have been utterly hammered with a massive 15-point deduction by an Italian court over fraudulent transfers by the past regime, dropping the club to 10th in the table.
This is perhaps the most devastating outcome Juventus was expecting from the court’s ruling.
Not only has former members and directors of Juve’s board, such as Andrea Agnelli and current Tottenham sporting director Fabio Paratici, been banned from holding positions within Italian football and the team hit with a massive 15-point deduction, but the club’s reputation has once again been dragged through the mud.
How many times can a club get caught doing nefarious business dealings before it realizes it has to either stop or do it more secretly?
Okay, that last option was a joke, but Juventus truly is the most braindead club in all of Europe, let alone all of Italy. This is now the second major points deduction the club has faced in the 21st century with the 2006 Calciopoli scandal causing the team to be relegated to Serie B, it was given a 9-point deduction for the following season in Serie B, and the team’s 2005 and 2006 Serie A titles were stripped.
You’d think after the Calciopoli scandal, which also happened to see the entire Juventus board resign in disgrace, the ensuing board members would get the hint that nefarious business dealings, whether it be on the pitch with referees or off the pitch with fellow teams over inflated transfers, would not be tolerated by the higher powers of Italian football.
Well, I guess not as only a few weeks after President Andre Agnelli, Board Vice Chairmen Pavel Nedved, and the rest of the Juventus board mysteriously resigned, an Italian court investigating the club’s transfers during the COVID-19 pandemic has ruled that the club acted improperly by inflating player values to falsify the accounting.
And, for the club’s punishment, the team has been docked 15 points and has fallen from 3rd in Serie A to 10th, a full 12 points behind 4th place Lazio.
This whole thing is now an unmitigated debacle.
I don’t see how the club, despite going on a 7-game Serie A winning streak before and just after the winter World Cup break, gets back in the Top-4 race as now they have to make up a 12-point gap on Roma (6th place-34 PTS), Atalanta (5th place-34 PTS), Lazio (4th place-34 PTS) and a 15-point gap on 3rd place Inter Milan (37 PTS).
All of these clubs would have to lose 4 straight games and Juve would have to win 4 straight games just for the Old Lady to make up the ground to level them on points, which is an unrealistic feat given the standings and financial power of the in-question clubs.
It’s just ridiculous to think that 4 of the 6 best clubs in Italy will all go on horrific losing streaks at the exact same time against opponents that not only have worse quality on the pitch, but also have a fraction of the spending power.
In other words, Juventus are screwed and will almost certainly miss out on the Europa League spots, let alone the coveted Champions League positions.
I’m sure all Juve fans are just dying to thank Agnelli and Nedved for all of their hard work behind the scenes right about now. It’s too bad they ran out the backdoor in the figurative dead of night without saying goodbye.
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