Before Luis Suarez transfered from Barcelona to Atletico Madrid at the end of last season, Italian giants Juventus were in talks for a potential move for his services. However, that deal broke down due to various reasons and the Uruguayan striker moved to the Spanish capital instead.
The former Liverpool forward was on the Bianconeri’s shortlist and an attempt to speed up efforts to get him Italian citizenship was underway during the 2020 summer transfer window.
This prompted the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) to open an investigation over Suarez’s Italian citizenship exam, a language test at the University of Perugia, that was allegedly pre-arranged by revealing the questions to the player in advance.
Perugia chief prosecutor Raffaele Cantone was the one to raise questions of preferential treatment for the then-Barcelona striker.
After a detailed initial investigation by the Italian FA and the FIGC prosecutor, no evidence has been found of illegal conduct from Juventus, saving the club from any potential sanctions. The case has been dismissed for now, citing the lack of enough proof to investigate further.
The statement from FIGC read: “There was not enough evidence to prove that there has been unlawful conduct relevant to the scope of the federal sports system.”
The striker passed the test as part of a fast-track naturalization process the Bianconeri needed him to go though in order to avoid exceeding their permitted quota of non-EU players. Irrespective of his positive result, he couldn’t build on his verbal agreement with Juventus.
The Uruguayan possesses a European passport that allows him to feature without problems in La Liga, but not Serie A.
Suarez eventually moved to Atletico Madrid on a €7m bargain transfer deal from Barcelona, few weeks after the agreed deal with Juventus broke down.