SERIE A
Juventus may face 20-point deduction for undeclared wage payments
Having already been deducted 15 points for falsified capital gains, Juventus could be punished even more heavily by the FIGC.
Things are not going especially well at the moment for Juventus. Is that an understatement? It probably is, yes. Having already been handed a 15-point deduction in Serie A a couple of weeks ago, they could now be set for an even heavier punishment, according to Italian newspaper Corriere dell Sport.
Why were Juventus docked 15 points?
It was announced on 20 January that the Old Lady had been docked 15 points by the Italian Soccer Federation (FIGC) for artificially inflating transfer fees to falsely boost capital gains, a decision which the club is currently appealing to the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI). Several club executives and former executives were suspended by the FIGC, including president Andrea Agnelli and vice-president Pavel Nedved.
The points deduction saw Juve drop from second place in the Serie A standings, from where they had a slim hope of catching runaway leaders Napoli, down to 10th spot; they currently find themselves in 13th after subsequent results.
FIGC looking to enforce further 20-point deduction on Juventus
It was also made aware that the club was being investigated for undeclared wage payments and that further disciplinary action was likely to be taken. And the Corriere dello Sport report that said disciplinary action will come in the form of a further 20-point deduction that the FIGC will be looking to enforce when the case goes to trial in March. If Juventus were to be docked 20 points today, they would be bottom of the Serie A table with only three points, 15 points – ironically enough – from safety.
Back in March 2020, Juventus released a formal statement saying that players and then-manager Maurizio Sarri had agreed to waive four months’ wages to help the club battle financial losses suffered during the covid-19 pandemic. That, it turned out, was ‘bending the truth’ somewhat, with a series of wiretaps and WhatsApp messages later revealing that players had agreed to give up one month of their wages but would be paid the rest in different forms, which enabled all parties to avoid tax payments.