Between the judicial investigation, with 14 suspects including the president Andrea Agnelli and the vice president Pavel Nedved, and the Consob references, the case of the Juventus financial statements is enriched by another passage.
The Juventus club has rewritten the pro forma income statements of the last three seasons by inserting them in a 30-page documentation in view of the shareholders' meeting, postponed by more than a month, from November 23rd to December 27th . The communications were published yesterday evening, after the meeting of the Juventus board of directors. Juventus thus responded to the requests contained in the Consob resolution on "deficiencies and critical issues" relating to the "accounting correctness" of the financial statements as at 30 June 2021, "applicable international accounting standards and the violations found in this regard" and on the "effects that compliant accounting to the rules would have produced on the balance sheet, income statement and shareholders' equity". A month ago, the investigations by the Turin Public Prosecutor closed, according to which "the erosion of the share capital" was hidden in the financial statements, an accusation to which the club has always responded by claiming that every operation "was carried out in compliance with laws and regulations" .
Under observation by Consob, two "salary manoeuvres", linked to the decisions taken in the most difficult period of Covid and the so-called 'cross operations' in the transfer market, i.e. "transactions of sale and simultaneous purchase of rights to players' sports performances concluded with the same counterparty", 15 cases in all, which generated the contested capital gains. The pro forma accounts drawn up by Juventus would transform the 2019/2020 loss from 89 to 152 million, that of 2020/2021 from 209 million to 233, while the 2021/2022 would close with a loss of 193 million against 253 of the financial statements approved by the board of directors - "The effects of the findings raised by Consob" as regards accounting correctness "would essentially be zero on cash flows and net financial debt, both past and future financial years", replies the Juventus club. From an economic and patrimonial point of view "they would cumulative level during the five-year period 2019/2020-2023/2024 for cross-transactions'" and "in the four-year period 2019/2020-2022/2023 for salary maneuvers".
The cross operations - reads the document from the Juventus club - "concern young players - not belonging to the first team - for whom the evaluations of the related rights are mainly based on the players' growth expectations". For the salary maneuver, Juventus underlines that, in the midst of the Covid emergency "it has concluded individual agreements for the reduction of fixed salaries", the "economic effects of which are reflected in the 2020 financial statements" and then subsequent "integration" agreements with effects "reflected in the financial statements for subsequent years". Agreements that have matured "in profiles of complexity and interpretative difficulties".
(Unioneonline)
