Reports: Leonardo Bonucci set to take legal action against Juventus

The final weeks of Leonardo Bonucci’s career involved plenty of off-field drama and nothing to talk about on it. That’s because, as we know all too well by now, that Bonucci was frozen out of the Juventus squad and told to find a new club if he wants to play in the 2023-24 despite the player’s previous desire to see out the final year of his career in Turin.

Now we have another layer to the divide.

According to reports from Goal Italia’s Romeo Agresti and Sky Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio, Bonucci is set to take legal action against Juventus for what his legal team says were damages to his image and reputation. Legal paperwork was expected to be filed on Tuesday, with other claims including that Juventus did not put him in the proper conditions to train despite being away from the squad, which would be in violation of the collective agreement with the Italian players’ association, according to Di Marzio.

If Bonucci is to win any damages, he plans to donate 100% of them to the pediatric neurosurgery department of the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital in Turin where he son Matteo got treatment as a young child.

According to Di Marzio, Bonucci, who has since joined Bundesliga side Union Berlin on Deadline Day deal, had to train at night at Continassa and at other times away from the team after he was frozen out by Max Allegri and Cristiano Giuntoli. He reportedly did not have access to all of the same training facilities that regular players in the squad do.

According to Agresti, this “is not a personal war with Juventus but a question of principle” for Bonucci. Agresti also reports that Juventus’ freezing him out of the squad “made the player feel deliberately abandoned to himself, through a strategy Bonucci considered premeditated.”

Both Di Marzio and Agresti say that Juventus maintain that they have acted within the rules and provided the proper environment for Bonucci to train, albeit away from the squad.