Source:REUTERS/John Sibley
[Saba Sports News] Recently, in an interview with Sky Sports, Fabio Paratici stated that he did nothing wrong during his tenure at Juventus. Paratici previously served as Sporting Director at Juventus. In 2021, Juventus came under suspicion for financial fraud, and in April 2023, the Italian sports court ruled that Juventus had intentionally inflated player transfer values to increase capital gains, being found guilty of financial falsification. Paratici was identified as the mastermind behind this and was banned from football-related activities for 30 months. Paratici’s ban ended this October, and he returned to work at Tottenham Hotspur. Regarding this, Paratici said: “Considering my character, when I face such a situation, feeling the need to defend myself makes me feel ashamed. Because you only defend yourself when you’ve done something wrong, and deep down, I’ve always believed I did nothing wrong. It was a very long process; you have to deal with situations you never thought you’d face. When it’s all over, you almost feel it made you grow as a person.” Paratici believes that Juventus and all involved personnel, including himself, were not penalized for artificially distorting player valuations, but rather for an accounting principle that was never used before and will not be used again. He suggested there are dozens of criteria that can change a player’s valuation; otherwise, they wouldn’t be talking about so-called transfer opportunities.