Italian FA slams 15 points deduction on Juventus

Italian football’s governing body (FIGC) also handed out long bans to the club’s former leadership, including two years to ex-chairman Andrea Agnelli and former CEO Maurizio Arrivabene and 30 months to former sporting director Fabio Paratici, now at Tottenham Hotspur.

All eight other clubs facing FIGC sanctions, including Sampdoria and Empoli, were acquitted.

Juve can appeal the governing body’s ruling, which drops them down from third in Italy’s top flight to 10th, at the Italian Olympic Committee.

The decision comes as the FIGC reopened a trial which had ended last year with Juve and a host of other clubs including Serie A leaders Napoli being acquitted.

It follows new evidence from a separate criminal probe into the Juve’s finances conducted by prosecutors in Turin.

Juve will know if they and former members of the club’s board will stand criminal trial over alledged false accounting after a preliminary hearing in March.

Agnelli and the rest of the Juve board stepped down in November under pressure from the criminal investigation, with a new board led by Gianluca Ferrero being named earlier this w