The prosecutors of the inquiry that forced Andrea Agnelli to resign listened to the conversations between the Juventus executives for a while, hunting for evidence of the club’s financial crimes. The officials were well-aware of the problems and the machinations to hide them (via Corriere della Sera).
For instance, the former president told CEO Maurizio Arrivabene.
“It wasn’t just the COVID pandemic, and we know that very well. We flooded the machine with amortizations and all the [expletive] underneath that we can’t spell out.”
He also told Exor chairman John Elkann.
“We lived above our means to become the best. We took big risks.”
Ex-CFO Stefano Bertola commented on the pressure coming from the investigation.
“In 15 years, I recall just one situation that was this ugly: Calciopoli. Everybody was hounding us back then, while we did it all on our own this time.”
Current sporting director Federico Cherubini slammed his previous boss Fabio Paratici.
“You couldn’t reason with him. Giuseppe Marotta contained him when he was here, while he had carte blanche afterward. He could wake up one day and complete a €20M transfer without obstacles. I told him that it was lawful but that he was pushing it too far. He replied that he didn’t care, because nobody could question the players’ price tags in swap deals. He altered the transfer market. We paid too much for Dejan Kulusevski or Federico Chiesa, even though they are good players.”
The trade between Miralem Pjanic and Arthur was the pinnacle of such stratagem. Stefano Cerrato, who succeeded Bertola, had his reservations.
“I think it would be appropriate to give the authorities an accounting standard or something, so I can bamboozle them more elegantly.”
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