Juventus discount 15 points on transfer deals

The National Football League announced on Friday that the Italian Football Court has allocated 15 points to Juventus for the current season.

The ruling, which also deals a blow to the club’s reputation, is stronger than the nine-point deduction requested by the Football General Prosecutor earlier in the day during a hearing looking into the way Juventus and a number of other teams handled player exchange deals.

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With 20 matches left this season, Juventus are third in Serie A with 37 points, 10 points behind leaders Napoli. The opponent pushes them into 10th place, outside the qualifying spots for the lucrative European competition.

In a statement issued late at night, the court also imposed a ban on 11 former and current Juventus directors from holding positions in Italian football.

This included 24 months for Andrea Agnelli, who was replaced this week as boss after officially stepping down in November, and 30 months for former sporting director Fabio Paracci, now managing director of football at English club Tottenham Hotspur.

Juventus said it would appeal to the country’s Sport Assurance Board once the reasons for the ruling were published.

“We consider this also a blatant injustice to millions of fans, and we are confident that it will soon be rectified in the next court,” the club’s lawyers said in a statement.

Juventus denied any wrongdoing and said its accounts were in line with industry standards.

The club is controlled by the Agnelli family’s holding company, Exor, and its shares are listed on the Milan Stock Exchange.

The ruling overturned a previous decision in April that acquitted Juventus and 10 other clubs and their executives of wrongdoing.

Football authorities have reopened the case and asked for the partial annulment of the initial decision so that they can assess new documents collected by Turin prosecutors investigating Juventus’ finances.

The court confirmed the acquittal of eight other football clubs, including Sampdoria and Empoli, and their directors, who prosecutors wanted to reopen the case.

Turin prosecutors have asked Agnelli, 11 other people and the club itself to stand trial over allegations of false accounting.

Juventus shareholders earlier this week appointed a new, reduced five-member board of directors with Gianluca Ferrero — an accountant close to John Elkann, the leading businessman in the family that has owned the club for a century — replacing Agnelli as chairman next. More than 10 years.