The Juventus earthquake caused by the block resignation of its board of directors continues to have consequences. The Prisma case, which investigates an alleged tax fraud, has not gone unnoticed in LaLiga. The employers, as AS revealed, denounced the Italian team before UEFA, but now it goes one step further. The institution chaired by Javier Tebas has requested sports sanctions against Juventus and immediately.
“After the resignation of the Juventus Board of Directors late on Monday, November 28, LaLiga demands that sports sanctions be applied immediately to the club. LaLiga already filed an official complaint against Juventus with UEFA in April 2022 in which it reported violations of the financial fair play regulations that the Italian Guardia di Finanza was investigating. Specifically, the complaint accused Juventus of accounting for transfers above their fair value and underestimating employee expenses, which is a breach of UEFA’s financial fair play. In addition, the complaint accused Juventus of hiding the true salary bill of its players.”, says LaLiga in its statement.
The institution chaired by Javier Tebas has been one of the ones that applies the hardest hand in these situations. Not only does it have strict financial control in Spain, but it also pursues any irregularity in Europe that affects the competitiveness of Spanish clubs. For this reason, in recent years he has not only denounced Juventus, but also other clubs such as PSG and Manchester City on repeated occasions. “LaLiga, with the aim of promoting financially sustainable football in Europe, maintains these complaints against Juventus and requests that the competent authorities apply immediate sporting sanctions to the club. La Liga has long been one of the leading advocates for the establishment, application and enforcement of strict financial sustainability rules in football. In April this year, LaLiga filed complaints for breach of financial fair play with UEFA against Juventus, but also against Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain. LThe Spanish competition itself has applied its “economic control” rules for almost a decade, at the request of the clubs that make up LaLiga. Financial sustainability is paramount to protecting the soccer business. Let’s protect our football”, affirms the employers’ association in its press release.
It is not the first time that LaLiga has made these complaints and it was partially successful. In the past, he managed to get UEFA to sanction Manchester City and PSG for complying with the economic fair play by expelling them from European competitions, although the TAS stopped said punishment. Now, in this complaint against Juventus, the possibility of the Italian club being expelled from UEFA competitions is once again on the table. Although it will be necessary to see if the sanctions arrive as immediately as LaLiga claims or not.
Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, considered that Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, “will not achieve” the objective of moving forward with the Super League although he believes that he will not give up his intention. “Florentino Pérez never loses and he will continue to insist. He will not achieve the goal but he will constantly follow. He has been with the project for many years now that the big clubs in Europe are the ones in charge and the rest of us receive the crumbs that they decide, that is their idea,” Tebas said before collecting the “Executive of the Year” award, which he presented to him in Madrid the magazine Ejecutivos. In this regard, he indicated: “I would like Florentino to resign from his Super League project, as president of Real Madrid I would say that he is almost the best club in history. I can’t assess the Bernabéu because I didn’t live at that time, which was very different”. “What I want is for him to resign his idea of organizing the Super League because as a competition organizer I give it a zero, as manager and president of Real Madrid a ten. Laporta has years left in his mandate to be qualified as a manager but I would also ask him to resign from the Super League,” he declared.
Thebes referred to this possible competition after Juventus in Turin, one of the clubs that bet on it, has resigned the entire board after detecting financial irregularities. “Juve has been under investigation by Italian criminal authorities for some time for balance sheet manipulation, false data in their financial statements. One reads the information on this subject and has been breaking UEFA’s financial Fair Play for years. We already denounced it in April and we insist again because you cannot allow a club to deceive UEFA ”, he commented. “We ask for sports sanctions. They are included in the regulations and it is time that when someone breaches the financial Fair Play of European competitions, which also affects us at the national level, they also have sports sanctions ”, added.
The president of LaLiga also stated: “We don’t want there to be people in football who falsify balance sheets and cheat accounts and who, on top of that, give management lessons, as happens to Al Khelaifi. It would be great news for me if Al Khelaifi left football and PSG”. On the other hand, he acknowledged that he is trying to counterprogram acts related to the Super League because he considers that “situations must be reported immediately” and he analyzed what the World Cup in Qatar means for him. “What I complain about is how it was chosen, how the dates changed. That is the real scandal that there is for me, how she was elected with very clear indications of corruption, that news is coming out every day, ”he said.
“When they chose it, they didn’t realize that in June and July it was very hot in Qatar and in 2014-2015 they changed it and decided to put it in the middle of the season. ANDThat is a scandal and from there what happens next, we are against it”, he completed. Regarding respect for human rights in the host country, he stated: “I wouldn’t have held a World Cup in Qatar if I hadn’t done it in Saudi Arabia, there are some human rights principles that must be respected. Nor do we have to be the champions of where the line is in all places, but here it is clear that human rights are not fulfilled”.
On the other hand, Javier Tebas considered that a possible return of Messi to Barcelona will depend on what the Argentine footballer collects and that right now the amounts he enters can only be paid by his current club, PSG. “It depends on what Messi charges. First that he wants to leave PSG, second that PSG let him out and third of what Messi earns. It will depend on those circumstances and if the three meet and it is an affordable amount within economic control, they will be signed, ”he said. “But it will depend on what Messi wins. If it’s what he earned when he left, no, impossible.
On other possible incorporations of the Barcelona team, he indicated: ”I refer to the words that the economic vice president said in the assembly of delegates when he said that what they had to do was reduce the wage bill. If not, it will be difficult. Something may be incorporated but I don’t know if what is being talked about. I hear President Laporta saying that one day he incorporates and the next he doesn’t. I do not know”. “The rules are for everyone and you have to comply with them. We do not have flexibility for some and not for others. The rules are very clear, they have no interpretation and they know it. We speak with Barcelona daily from the economic control department and they know what it is and what there is, they have known it all summer and since Joan Laporta and his economic team have been here”, he assured.
Thebes elaborated on the changes undertaken in financial control: “Now the control is for two seasons because if it can’t happen that someone sells a lot of assets, anticipates a lot of income and covers the season but the next one is in a difficult economic situation. The regulation approved by the clubs goes in that direction”. “I will remember that these caps are for the salary cap, If you want to spend it on something else like renovating the stadium, you can do it. They are salary limits that they have when incorporating players, ”he declared.