Italy sports authority cancels 15-point penalty for Juventus, orders new trial

This decision lifts Juventus from seventh to third in the Serie A table - with 59 points, 16 behind leader Napoli - but back into the qualifying spots for the Champions League next season.

File Photo: Juventus faces league leader Napoli in its next match in the Serie A. | Photo Credit: REUTERS/Massimo Pinca

Italy’s top sports body on Thursday ordered a football court to review its previous ruling which docked Juventus 15 points in the current Serie A season, in a case centred on the club’s transfer dealings.

With eight games left to play this season, the decision lifts Juventus from seventh to third in the Serie A table - with 59 points, 16 behind leaders Napoli - but back into the qualifying spots for the lucrative European Champions League.

The ruling of Italy’s Sports Guarantee Board came after Juventus, the most successful football club in Italy, appealed a sentence Italy’s football court issued in January as it looked at the way the club and several other teams dealt with player exchange deals.

In January, Juve was found found guilty by the FIGC appeals court of having “systematically altered accounting documents... from at least the quarter ending March 31, 2019, to the quarter ending March 31, 2021”.

The offences related to approximately 60 million euros ($65.7 million) of “phony capital gains” from transfers “aimed at making financial results look better than they were in reality”, according to the appeals court.

The court had also imposed bans from holding office in Italian football on 11 past and present Juventus directors, including former Chairman Andrea Agnelli, a prominent member of the family controlling Juventus through their investment company Exor.

This ruling also means that Inter and Milan, which will be playing each other in the Champions League semifinals, drop to fifth and sixth, respectively. As things stand, neither team will be in the Champions League next season. The only way it can play Europe’s premier club competition is by winning it this season.

Jose Mourinho’s Roma is fourth in the Serie A table with 56 points from 30 games.

Allegri’s seventh-placed side has lost ground on the European places in the last two weeks after back-to-back defeats to Lazio and Sassuolo. In its next match, it is up against a Napoli team that will be smarting from its Champions League exit.

(with inputs from Team Sportstar)