The day after the resignation of the entire board of directors, Exor, the holding company of the Agnelli family controlling Juventus, announced on Tuesday the name of the future boss of the "Old lady": Gianluca Ferrero, 59, an expert- an accountant with a more technical than sporting profile, cut according to Exor for the difficult recovery mission that awaits him.

"Recommended" at this stage by Exor, which owns 63.8% of the club, he will be elected at the next general meeting on January 18, kicking off a year marking the centenary of the Agnelli family as owners. of the bianconero club.

The general manager, Maurizio Arrivabene, is responsible for expediting current affairs by then, Juventus, a listed club whose title was down some 4% at the opening of the Milan Stock Exchange on Tuesday, said Monday evening.

Andrea Agnelli, 46, took over the presidency of Juventus in 2010, when the Old Lady was emerging from the darkest period in its history with the loss on green carpet of two Italian championship titles (2005, 2006) and the year spent in the second division in 2006/07, because of its implication in the scandal of the "calciopoli" (influence on the choice of the referees).

Costly Ronaldo operation

Under the impetus of this young leader and in an ultramodern stadium owned by the club, inaugurated in 2011, Juve quickly returned to the top of Italian football and won nine consecutive scudetti (2012 to 2020), unheard of.

Several leaders of Juventus Turin including chairman of the board of directors Andrea Agnelli (C) and vice-president Pavel Nedved (D), on October 15, 2022 during the derby against Torino in the Italian championship Marco BERTORELLO AFP / Archives

In 12 years, the bianconero club has won 19 titles in total (five Italian Cups, five Italian Super Cups).

But his two failures in the Champions League final (2015, 2017), the great shared regret of Andrea Agnelli and his favorite coach Massimiliano Allegri, pushed the club to always think bigger.

Too?

The arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo, in 2018, concretized these ever more important ambitions but marked the beginning of financial troubles: so far healthy, finances then tumbled into bright red, in particular because of the astronomical salary of the Portuguese star.

"CR7" left in 2021 without having brought all the expected additional resources or the titles hoped for on the international scene.

Juve has even accumulated poor performance in C1 in recent seasons, until its pitiful elimination in the group stage of the current edition.

In the red for the past five years, the club recorded last season 255 million euros in losses, a record deficit in the history of Italian football.

What about the Super League?

In UEFA's sights, Juve is engaged in a three-year recovery plan to comply with the European body's financial fair play accounting rules.

Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, then at Juventus, in a friendly match against Atalanta Bergamo, August 14, 2021 in Turin MARCO BERTORELLO AFP / Archives

To limit its losses, the club had to be ever more innovative.

He multiplied the "false exchanges" of players, consisting of cross-selling with other clubs, without exchanging money but allowing capital gains to be recorded in the balance sheets.

A practice that earned him to be in the sights of Italian justice.

The Turin public prosecutor's office estimated these "fictitious" capital gains at some 155 million euros between 2018 and 2021, according to the media.

The club is also said to have concealed from its investors the existence of private agreements with players, including Ronaldo, to pay certain salaries on a deferred basis.

Juventus explained on Monday that they had "again examined the objections of the public prosecutor's office" of the Turin court, and decided "to adopt legitimate alternative accounting methodologies" concerning these salary supplements.

A way to take the lead when several of its leaders over the period, including Andrea Agnelli, risk a dismissal on trial.

The Super League can lose one of its greatest lawyers.

Agnelli's Juve was one of the last three clubs campaigning for this private Champions League rival project, along with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

The question now is whether she will still be without him.

© 2022 AFP