Juve accepts 718,000-euro fine to end wages case

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 30 - An Italian Soccer Federation (FIGC) tribunal on Tuesday accepted a plea bargain between Juventus and sporting prosecutors for the Turin club to pay a fine of 718,000-euro fine over a case regarding irregularities in an agreement for salary cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic, sources said on Tuesday. The deal entails Juve agreeing not launch appeals in pending cases, the sources said.
    The Turin giants have been docked 10 Serie A points this season in a separate case about financial irregularities regarding allegedly inflated values assigned to some transfer dealings in the club's balance sheets in recent years.
    The wages case regards Juve's announcement at the start of the pandemic that players had agree to take a big pay cuts for four months to enable the club to make ends meet during the health emergency.
    The club, however, allegedly made secret payments to players, who only gave up one month's salary.
    The fine will be paid by the club and by several former Juve executives implicated in the case.
    The case of former Chairman Andrea Agnelli, however, has been separated from the others and he will face a hearing on June 15, the sources said.
    Juve's share price on the Milan stock exchange climbed 7% to 0.31 euros after the news of the plea bargain came out.
    Juventus said Tuesday it agreed to a plea bargain with sporting prosecutors over the COVID-salary-cut case in order to end uncertainty, "while reiterating the correctness of its actions and the soundness of its defensive arguments".
    "The settlement of all open FIGC sports proceedings allows the Company to achieve a definite result, settling the matter and overcoming the state of tension and instability that would inevitably descend from the continuation of disputes whose outcomes and timing would remain uncertain," the Turin club said.
    It said this would also allow "the management, the coach of the first team and the players to focus on sports activities and in particular on the overall planning of the next season (with regard to sports activities and to businessrrelationships with sponsors, other commercial and financial counterparts)". (ANSA).