New Juventus President And CEO Address Shareholders Meeting

Back in November, the entire board of Juventus Football Club resigned. This was – as explained in this previous column – because the Italian government had begun investigating claims that members of the Juventus first team squad were paid off the books during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over the following few weeks, further details emerged as the authority responsible for regulating the Italian securities market, known as CONSOB, discovered that a number of players had signed agreements to reduce their salaries in order to help the club through that extremely difficult period but were allegedly actually given that money “in the black.”

As was detailed in this follow up column, that would mean that the players and the club avoided paying tax on those sums, while the club would have also falsified their books. That would be classified as financial fraud given that Juventus are a publicly traded company with legal obligations to the stock market, any evidence of this would be classified as financial fraud.

So, with club President Andrea Agnelli, Vice-President Pavel Nedved, CEO Maurizio Arrivabene and other key personnel all announcing their departure, it was revealed that a meeting in January 2023 would see the official appointment of their replacements.

That meeting took place this week and saw Fioranna Vittoria Negri, Maurizio Scanavino, Gianluca Ferrero, Diego Pistone, Laura Cappiello all voted in as members of the new board.

Furthermore, as this statement from Juve’s official website confirmed, Gianluca Ferrero was officially made the Chairman and Maurizio Scanavino became the new Chief Executive Officer.

“When I speak about Juventus,” President Ferrero told those in attendance, “I am talking about all of Juventus, those that work on the pitch and those that work off the pitch. As you know, challenges await us in the coming months and that we as the Board of Directors believe we have the experience, competence and determination to defend Juventus and our team in front of all the competent institutions, whether criminal, sporting or civil.

“We will do it with determination and rigour, we will also do it calmly and without any form of arrogance. We have always respected and will always respect all those called on to judge us, but what we want is equal respect for us, for the club and for our team, to be able to discuss with seriousness and rigour in front of the competent institutions the motivation behind our actions.”

As the investigations continue, those qualities will be vital, while Scanavino was far more positive and looked to the work he will hope to oversee in the months and years ahead.

“The main objective is to expand the Juventus fanbase, on an international scale and among the youth,” he said. “We think that important goals can be achieved by leveraging Juventus history and identity.

“The sporting and corporate objectives remain unchanged, this too is part of the history of Juventus, which has always known how to combine success on the pitch with sustainability and commercial results and we will also aim to continue to do this.”

It remains to be seen what effect any sanctions stemming from the current investigation may have upon those plans.