Tottenham director Fabio Paratici is being investigated by the Italian Guardia di Finanza as part of the capital gains scandal engulfing Juventus.
That’s according to Corriere Dello Sport, who look at the situation today and how the Tottenham chief is wrapped up in it.
They say that Juventus are ‘in shock’ after the Guardia di Finanza searched their headquarters in Continassa as part of their investigation into the inflated capital gains issue, which is being conducted by the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Among the six suspects is Juventus president Andrea Agnelli, vice-president Pavel Nedved and their former managing director Paratici, who is now at Tottenham.
The criminal investigation, which was started last May, is aiming to ‘shed light’ on the alleged accounting ‘tricks’ carried out in the club’s transfer dealings in the 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons.
Consob, which oversees Juve’s stock being listed on the stock exchange, Covisoc, the Supervisory Commission for professional football clubs and the FIGC Federal Prosecutor’s Office have all been involved in the investigation for some time also.
There is talk of ‘transactions’ worth nearly €50m, with the swap deal between Artur and Miralem Pjanic in 2020 under particular focus.
That was a straight swap deal with Barcelona, but both clubs recorded the deal as it was not, thus aiding their balance sheets and other important financials.
It is this move which is being investigated, as well as several others, while there is also a belief that the company used ‘administrative liability’ for a criminal offence. This is when a legal person has benefitted from the commission of certain specific offences.
The investigation, codenamed Prisma, was started in May 2021 and has been ongoing since then, with this raid the latest big development in their search.
It was done when the stock market was closed to protect the financial market, as Juventus are a listed company.
A statement from the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that they had been looking for documents to prove ‘false communications of listed companies’ and ‘issuance of invoices for non-existent transactions’.
It is alleged that those in charge of the club at the time, so Paratici, Nedved and Agnelli, purposefully falsified documents, while several transactions involving transfers of players and the work done by their agents are also under investigation.
