A while back, an investigation started in Italy looking at Juventus’ finances, and how some transfers were made to look financially better than they actually were.
The Miralem Pjanic-Arthur Melo swap was one of those being reviewed, and there is now a chunk that involves Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Portuguese star was bought back by the Red Devils during the summer of 2021, when he decided he wanted to move on from Juventus.
He looked to be heading to Manchester City before Manchester United swooped in to avoid that, but Ronaldo’s return to Old Trafford hasn’t gone to plan.
He did perform last season under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and then Ralf Rangnick, but the change to Erik ten Hag hasn’t helped him in the slightest, and he now finds himself on the bench more often than not.
This has led to him showing his discontent by refusing to come on against Tottenham, and then heading back to the changing room early, forcing the club to kick him out of the squad against Chelsea.
He is back in the squad ahead of the next Europa League fixture, but there is now something else for him to be in the media about, which is this Juventus drama.
Gazzetta dello Sport cover it on Wednesday, covering what has been said in Italy about the Serie A side’s dealings to allegedly boost their finances.
They have been accused of ‘compensation to agents for non-existent operations’, amongst other things, in a 19-page document ‘in which 15 Juventus managers (read board members) and former managers are investigated’.
In fact, ‘according to the pool of magistrates of Turin, Juventus would have rigged the 2018, 2019 and 2020 financial statements with €115m of artificial capital gains’ in order to ‘hide “the erosion of the share capital” and “continue unduly trading” of the stock on the stock exchange’.
There is also the case of the €19.9m that Juventus ‘should have paid’ Cristiano Ronaldo ‘in case of a farewell’, which took place last summer.
That figure, ‘according to the prosecution, would not have been duly accounted for in the financial statements’.
Juventus have defended themselves with a public statement, and ‘the suspects will have 20 days to present the defence briefs and choose whether to be questioned’.
In the meantime, the Federal Prosecutor ‘may request to have the documents’, but they have not done so at the moment.
It’s a complicated affair that doesn’t directly involve Manchester United, but it does involve Cristiano Ronaldo (at least by name), as the money he seemingly received was never acknowledged by Juventus in their statements.
