Allegri describes restoration of points, beating Sporting as ‘A wonderful day for Juventus’

Juventus manager Max Allegri hails a ‘wonderful day’ after Juventus got 15 Serie A points returned and eliminated Sporting CP to reach the Europa League semi-final. ‘I expected it to be Sevilla.’

The Bianconeri had a 1-0 first leg lead to protect and added to it with the early Adrien Rabiot goal in Lisbon.

That was cancelled out on the night by a Marcus Edwards penalty, also given away by Rabiot, but it proved enough to scrape through 2-1 on aggregate.

“It’s a wonderful day,” smiled Allegri on Sky Sport Italia.

“It was a good performance, especially in the second half, but we must do better in our finishing. The lads behaved well and we were a little bit lucky too.”

It had already been a strong start for the Old Lady, as the verdict came in restoring the 15-point penalty in Serie A, even though it is pending another Federal Court of Appeal hearing.

That could be done before the end of the season or afterwards, everything remains up in the air.

“This is a day where we get 15 points returned, now we need to dive back into Serie A, as we lost points too often recently. We must consolidate our position in the top four.”

They will face Sevilla in the semi-final, who just demolished Manchester United 3-0 this evening, 5-3 on aggregate.

“I expected it to be Sevilla, as they are a tough side and have won many Europa League trophies already.”

Meanwhile, Pavel Nedved and several other members of the Juventus board have been cleared of wrongdoing in the capital gains case, but Fabio Paratici, Andrea Agnelli and more saw their appeals rejected.

The Collegio di Garanzia gave its verdict and effectively bumped the entire case back to the Federal Court of Appeal, which will now have to rule on the capital gains case for the third time.

It initially cleared everyone in April 2022, then inflicted a 15-point penalty and numerous bans on Juventus in January 2023 following new evidence.

Some appeals were accepted in their entirety, so former Juve board members Nedved, Paolo Galimberti, Assia Grazzioli-Venier, Caitlin Mary Hughes, Daniela Marilungo and Francesco Roncaglio have been cleared.

That has a knock-on effect, as it also takes some of the edge off the idea there was a ‘system’ of artificially inflating transfer fees to boost capital gains that ran throughout the club.

The verdict asks that the Federal Court of Appeal “renew its evaluation, especially, with regards to the causal effect of individual administrators, providing adequate motivation and taking that into account for the sanction given to the club Juventus FC.”

When it comes to directors including Andrea Agnelli, Fabio Paratici – now at Tottenham – Maurizio Arrivabene and Federico Cherubini, their appeals were rejected.

So their bans are not temporarily suspended along with the 15-point penalty.

That could be by the end of the season, but with time running tight, it’s more likely to be for the 2023-24 campaign.