Vincent Schodel is a marketing expert and co-founder of the Sport Business Observatory, a think tank of In&Sport, which specializes in analyzing and demystifying the evolution of sport, both in its economic and social dimensions. The article was written with François-Xavier Gérard, a member of the Sport Business Observatory and an expert in organizational management.
- DOSSIER – Sports Business Observatory
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- Serie A games and results
Since May 2021, court cases have been swirling around the most successful Italian club. The charges brought by prosecutors between Turin’s prosecutor’s office and the Italian federation came in a request for indictments against 13 suspects, including president Andrea Agnelli, vice-president Pavel Nedved and a number of senior club decision-makers. Thursday 1:00eh In December, the prosecution approved their referral to justice.
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At the heart of the scandal are potential accounting irregularities aimed at inflating the balance sheet, which has mostly been in deficit in recent years. Of the 322 million euros in capital gains from transfers between 2018 and 2021, the prosecution considers 282 of them suspect, even qualifying as “fictitious” certain transactions estimated at 155 million. The courts are causing “fake swaps” of players used to cushion the (disastrous) financial performance of the club listed on the Milan Stock Exchange (-€254m net profit, an Italian record). Also fictitious invoices payable to certain agents. According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, “Juventus paid agents sums for services that were not rendered and are therefore considered non-existent, with an accompanying loss to the public exchequer for the unnecessary reduction of VAT.”
The transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo is also mentioned, which will supposedly allow the club to reach the European summits once again. The deferred payments of some parts of his salary and other players will not be reported to the investors or to the accounting… It refers to a secret agreement between Juventus and CR7 in the amount of 20 million euros. . The case dates back to the Covid era, during which all players had officially agreed to forego 4 months of salary. But concurrently and secretly, investigators would discover a document signed by the club and CR7 recording this “bonus”. The Portuguese player, who is currently the highest paid player in Serie A at 31 million euros net per year, is now demanding to enforce this agreement and pay this 20 million euros.
Capital Growth vs. Stock Market Sinking
A few days of euphoria and stock market speculation surrounding the Super League draft are now far gone. On April 19, 2021, the holding company of the Agnelli family, Exor, which owns 63.8% of the club, boasted a + 10% increase in the stock at the beginning of the session, visibly in front of the resolution. considered attractive by investors. At the time, with a market capitalization of around $1.25 billion, and already far from the December 2019 record ($1.85 billion), the market cap necessarily plummeted following the news and then the allegations, to an early low of less than 700 million. December
Exor has previously negotiated two major capital increases. The first, in 2019, in the amount of 300 million euros, for which the main sponsor Jeep put its hand in the wallet. Small arrangements between friends, because Jeep is owned by the Fiat automotive group, which is owned by the … Exor holding company. Enough to prompt comparisons with Qatar’s sponsorship of PSG. The second, in 2021, was designed to cover the significant losses the Bianconeri would suffer during Covid, with Serie A the biggest hit among the Big 5 with -18% revenue, according to Deloitte : The prestigious Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan participate in the financing round with a final amount of 400 million euros.
Super League as a lifeline
It’s hard not to link the club’s economic woes to the Super League project, which has Juventus d’Agnelli among others. If discussions of a closed (or semi-closed) European league have been going on well since the 90s, much to the chagrin of FIFA and UEFA, it is Florentino Perez’s version of April 18, 2021 that breaks through first. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico de Madrid, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, Inter and Milan”, 12 clubs in the top 20. fan base terms, enough to make this project “bankable”. But very stealthily. 48 hours later, in the face of a popular and institutional revolt, which has caused the withdrawal of the founding members of all 6 English clubs, the project is suspended to be “transformed”.
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A genuine draft or pressure on UEFA as the body examines Champions League reforms for 2024, the temptation was strong in any case for a club that closed its 2020-2021 accounts with a €210m deficit. Because the promise was tempting. Still online on its website (thesuperleague.com), the financial arguments refer to payments to “exceed €10 billion during the clubs’ initial commitment period” and “€3.5 billion to support their infrastructure investment plans alone”. and to offset the impact of the COVID pandemic.” Something to fill some holes…
The athlete as the icing on the cake
But since it is not only millions of shots that build a team, sports decline is added to the note. Allegri’s men, the authors of a bad start to the season, did not finish the season before the Qatari breaks, were eliminated from the Champions League in the group stages, and against their opponents they say “accessible”. The shortfall will reduce year-end accounts by approximately €20 million.
The worst can still come from Europe. On December 2, UEFA in turn announced the player contracts, transfers and operations with agents during the period 2018-2020. Therefore, sporting sanctions could also be imposed, in a competition that has eluded Juve for 26 years and the last Champions League title (1995/1996). The painful episode of the Super League can also be rekindled in the memory of the European body…
So far, “immediate sporting sanctions” have already been demanded by the Spanish league’s troubled Javier Tebas in an extension of the April 2022 protest against the Italian club for failing to comply with fair play rules. Financial game. The result could be fatal for a club whose budget is more than 50% based on TV rights (€253/€480m) and whose financial windfall from European TV rights has been around €80m in recent years.
Today, as a symbol or as a confession, it is an accountant who steered this sinking ship. Gianluca Ferrero, 59, a native of Turin who is also an auditor and director of several companies, according to Exor Holding, has “solid experience and the necessary technical skills, as well as a real passion for the Juventus club, which makes he is the most suitable person for the position.
Financial scandal or accounting errors? Innocent or guilty? The Torino shirt has never worn black and white so well.
Source: Le Figaro
I am Dylan Hudson, a dedicated and experienced journalist in the news industry. I have been working for Buna Times, as an author since 2018. My expertise lies in covering sports sections of the website and providing readers with reliable information on current sporting events.