FIGC prosecutor set to appeal Juventus’ capital gains verdict from May (UPDATED)

Juventus’ legal worries may have taken on another twist Thursday evening.

The Italian Football Federation announced that its federal prosecutor has decided to appeal a May decision that saw Juventus acquitted on charges relating to the plusvalenza investigation that broke earlier this year. There are eight other clubs involved in the appeal — Sampdoria, Pro Vercelli, Genoa, Parma, Pisa, Empoli, Novara and Pescara — although they are included simply because they have directly done business with Juventus during the two-year window into which the investigation centers around.

Most notably, Napoli — despite initially facing plusvalenza charges themselves — are not involved in this iteration of the FIGC’s appeal due to the fact that they have not done direct business with Juve over that time.

According to Sky Italia, the FIGC prosecutor will have until the end of January to decide whether to open a sporting trial.

This steams from the original investigation opened by the Turin Prosecutor’s Office having to do with Juventus and capital gains made from deals over transfer windows from 2019 to 2021. However, the judge in the case ruled that there is no true way to firmly define how much a player is worth, and essentially saying that said worth (and transfer fee) is what the two clubs agree to.

If the appeal to revoke the acquittal is success and the case against Juventus is reopened, it would add another legal issue to what has already been an eventful few weeks for the club, which got kicked into overdrive following president Andrea Agnelli and the rest of the board of directors stepping down.

UPDATE: Juventus has issued a club statement on the matter following reports earlier in the day and subsequent press release of the FIGC prosecutor’s decision to appeal:

Turin, 22 December 2022 – Juventus Football Club S.p.A. (“Juventus” or the “Company”) informs that tonight it has received, together with 8 other Italian football companies and respective senior managers at the time of the events, from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office before the F.I.G.C. (Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio), a “impugnazione per revocazione parziale, ex art. 63, del C.G.S., della decisione della Corte Federale di Appello, Sezioni Unite, n. 0089/CFA-2021-2022 del 27 maggio 2022, divenuta definitiva” (appeal by partial revocation, pursuant to Article 63, of the C.G.S., of the decision of the Federal Court of Appeals, United Sections, No. 0089/CFA-2021-2022 of May 27, 2022, which became definitive).

Pursuant to the decision, the Federal Court of Appeals had rejected the appeal (“reclamo”) brought by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office against the decision of the National Federal Court, which, in turn, had acquitted Juventus and the other parties charged because of the lack of any disciplinary offence with regard to the evaluation of the effects of certain transfers of players’ rights on financial statements and the accounting of capital gains.

The Company will articulate its defenses within the terms provided by the Code, trusting that it will be able to further demonstrate the correctness of its actions, the absence of new elements relevant to the judgment with respect to the decision of the Federal Court of Appeals, and the lack of the prerequisites of the proposed appeal.