“Relationships of cooperation and partnership” between Juventus and teams such as Atalanta, Sampdoria, Sassuolo, Empoli and Udinese open up scenarios that “The loyalty of sports competition is in danger”. This was supported by the Turin prosecutors in their investigation, after they revealed an ambiguous scenario regarding business and relationships. And theRomero’s case is symbolic: the Argentine defender was bought by Juventus in July 2019 for 26 million euros and left on loan in Genoa, then he moved directly to Atalanta in the summer of 2020 with a two-year loan formula of 4 million and a ransom of 16 million. The process was supervised by Juventus sporting director Fabio Paratici, who brought Romero to Tottenham in August 2021 for 50 million euros. On July 30, 2021, Paratici gets on the phone with Atalanta CEO Luca Percassi, pushing for a deal: «There is a player who pays 16 million and sells it after one day for 50! ». Strange behavior for someone who has just been hired by the English club, but Percassi takes time and arranges a meeting with Andrea Agnelli to find an agreement with Juventus on the replacement of Christian Romero and the loan of Demiral “with the loan deducted from my credits”. Parachi reassures him (“Andrea is the one who will settle down later”) and explains that “last year we had to find the money, and therefore we had to sell Romero even if it wasn’t for the right price.”.
On August 1, Percassi (not investigated) called Agnelli and the Juventus president explained, “YesHow many items we have, I have to stand still now because we have Consob and Guardia di Finanza and whatever they look at us (…) for the last two years. So I would close these things here and then go back to sort out the different situations, being aware of what we have.” The process was concluded on 2 August after the meeting and Percassi explained to Parachi that Agnelli had “behaved well, assured me of everything”. And so the double deal is played out: Romero goes to Tottenham (“he was overpaid,” Cherubini will tell a TV journalist) and Demiral leaves Turin for Bergamo for 2.5 million on loan and 20 million for a buy. Between Juventus and Atalanta, there was already the ex Dejan Kulusevski (now at Tottenham) who paid 35 million plus 9 bonuses in January 2020:Ruby to the Bianconeri and a few months later they sold young Simon Moratore to the Nerazzurri for 7 million. sArtachi spoke to the Consob inspectors about a “moral obligation” that Atalanta must pay, but there is a special agreement in which Percassi pledged to buy the Juventus player for 3 million euros. A ‘side letter’ also appears in Romero’s move to Tottenham with the need to obtain collateral should the London club fail to buy. “I will never be able to get that message out there, because we have to go to court, it turns out I struck the wrong balance,” Perkasi will say in an Objection File dated August 4, 2021.