TURIN
The end of an era – that of Andrea Agnelli’s Juve, which lasted 4,576 days – lies in a three-page press release released late in the evening, after Consob warned: the president, the deputy Pavel Nedved and the CEO Maurizio Arrivabene have resigned their powers and it goes without saying that the entire board of directors, which had met in extraordinary session in the afternoon, was thus dispensed with. It is up to the shareholders’ meeting to appoint the new one, which should take place on January 18 next year, after it had already been postponed twice, first to November 23 and then to December 27. The decision was weighed down by «the shortcomings and critical issues discovered by Consob and the comments of Deloitte&Touche, the club’s accounting firm»; but especially the investigation by the Turin public prosecutor’s office. The one who investigated the top management of Juventus on charges of false corporate and market communications, obstruction of the regulatory authorities and false invoices for non-existent transactions. In addition to the club itself, for administrative liability.

After becoming president on May 19, 2010, after a seventh place, Agnelli had repeated it, to then make history, with 9 championships spun, several national cups and two Champions League finals, while turnover took off, in the pursuit of the great European. But then the capital gains also had to swell – in a suspicious way, according to the public prosecutor’s office and the financial police – to the red of the last budget, which was still on the balance sheet, at minus 254 million euros. Bills cracked first by Cristiano Ronaldo’s paychecks and then by Covid. To the research which, unsurprisingly, is also referred to in the club’s note: «Given the centrality and relevance of the pending legal and technical-accounting issues, the members of the board of directors considered it in the best social interest to of a new board of directors to deal with these issues”. Starting from a different accounting of the so-called “salary maneuvers”, if one understands from the technical-accounting considerations that one could move towards an interpretation adopted by Consob and researchers. Hence the “decision to amend the draft financial statements and the consolidated financial statements as of June 30, 2022”.

The future will be for others: “At the proposal of the chairman Agnelli and in order to ensure that the decision on the renewal of the board can be referred to the general meeting as soon as possible, all members of the board of directors declared during the meeting that they are resigning from their office”. By asking Arrivabene to keep the position of CEO. Obviously, “the Council will continue its activities under the prorogatio regime” until the meeting.

In the storm, accounting and judicial, the impression is that the helm will be in the hands of the new general manager, Maurizio Scanavino
, 49 years old, a graduate of Polytechnic and former CEO and general manager of Gedi publishing house. Since 2004 in the then Fiat group, then in La Stampa, he is a trusted man of John Elkann, number one of Exor, the holding company of the Agnelli family that controls the majority of the club. In short, the imprint of ownership.

Daniela Marilungo is an exception to the board of directors’ forfeiture procedures, non-executive and independent director, as well as member of the control and risk committee, who resigned with a separate statement. She justified them “by claiming that it was impossible to exercise her mandate with due composure and independence, also, but not only, due to the fact that she believes she has not been enabled to act fully “informed” in the face of issues of certain complexity”. The board of directors “took note of the comments, but did not share them”.