The decision was driven by the involvement in the judicial investigation, opened by the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office on charges of false accounting and the latest complaints from Consob, the government authority of Italy responsible for regulating the Italian securities market.
However, the Board of directors has requested Maurizio Arrivabene to maintain the position of Chief Executive Officer. Prosecutor attention has been the economic treatment granted to Seria A (first division) players during the Covid period, and in particular the waiver of part of the salaries which, after being announced and accounted for, have been, according to the prosecutor, informally renegotiated. These are the so-called "salary manoeuvres".
Mr Agnelli's stint at the helm of Juventus has been particularly successful, winning nine Italian championships in a row. He engineered the less successful hiring of Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese super star. He also tried to relaunch the European competition by proposing, in agreement with other leading historical football clubs such as Real Madrid of Spain, an alternative super-league to the traditional European Champion's League. This attempt was short lived.
Italian football clubs are financially challenged by behemoths such as the sovereign Fund of Qatar that have raised the bar to a level that is pushing clubs into uncomfortable positions.
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