• The Italian Football Federation is said to be investigating 62 suspicious transfers made by Italian clubs between 2019 and 2021.

  • Their goal is simple: take advantage of loopholes in financial fair play to comply with the rules of the said FPF.

Could this be the beginning of the end of small arrangements between friends in the transfer market? This is the question that arises after the information published in Italy by 

La Repubblica

(and confirmed since by

Gazzetta dello sport

) and according to which the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) is investigating suspicious transfers made by football clubs. Serie A. In the sights of the investigators, inflated transfers dealt between two clubs seeking to comply with UEFA's financial fair play rules.

The manipulation is known: When a club buys a player, it can amortize (or smooth) the amount it has just spent over several seasons in its account lines.

But when he sells one, on the other hand, he can enter the entire amount received on these same account lines for the current season, even if the payments from the acquiring club are spread over several years.

The Pjanic / Arthur exchange, a win-win deal for Barça and Juve

Let's take one of the (school) cases currently in the sights of the Italian Fed: The Pjanic / Arthur exchange between Barça and Juve in the summer of 2020. The Serbian midfielder of the Old Lady had joined the Blaugranas against 60 million euros for a four-year contract, while Arthur did the opposite against 72 million euros, for five years.

Beyond the fact that these sums, for players of this age and / or of this quality, appeared totally eccentric, this exchange allowed the two clubs to find their account and to release, on paper, via the hacks accountants that we have just detailed, a capital gain of around 50 million euros (Pjanic having cost some 15 million per year to Barça, and Arthur 14.5 to Juve).

These transfers are part of the 62 targeted by the FIGC, just like that of the former Lille resident Victor Osimhen in Naples.

Among the "counterparts" of the transfer of Osimhen, there was a certain Ciro Palmieri.

Valued 7M in the operation, according to Gazzetta, he is now 21 years old and plays striker in Nocera, near Naples, in D4.

He has scored two goals in nine matches.

https://t.co/Vn1vzYczSl

- Stanislas Touchot (@StanTouchot) October 27, 2021

The transfer of Marley Aké (OM) to Juve in the sights of investigators

While the Neapolitans broke the checkbook and offered the Nigerian striker against around 70 million euros for a five-year contract (plus an optional year), they refurbished at the same time four of their players (including three have since left the club without playing a pro minute with the Mastiffs) against 20 million euros.

Thus, by smoothing the transfer of Osimhen over the total number of years of his new contract (around 14 million per year) and by entering 20 million in the “profits” grid, Napoli emerged from this supposedly expensive operation with the buttocks clean in the eyes of the FPF.

A financial deal between Juve and OM for Aké and Tongya?

https://t.co/LrANnOplPL

- 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) January 27, 2021

In France, the paid exchange between the Marseillais Marley Aké and the Turinese Franco Tongya (8 million euros each), two players of medium caliber playing today in the respective reserve teams of the two clubs, has also been scrutinized. Italian investigators.

Problem, if this practice seems to make it possible to play with this damned financial fair play, it is not either illegal or contrary to the rules of the said FPF.

In this, the conclusions of Giuseppe China, the prosecutor of the Italian Federation, will be particularly interesting to analyze.

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  • Financial fair play