‘Biggest tribute to Pele’- Twitter shocked as Juventus drop to 10th after being handed 15 point penalty for false accounting

Juventus Football Club, one of the most successful and well-known clubs in Italian football, was hit with a 15-point penalty on Friday by a court investigating its transfer dealings. The ruling is tougher than the 9 points deduction anticipated earlier. With 20 games left to play in this season, Juve were third in Serie A with 37 points, 10 points behind leaders Napoli. The deduction has now put them on 10th position and out of Champions League and Europa League qualification.

In a late-night statement, the court also imposed bans from holding office in Italian soccer on 11 past and present Juventus directors. Andrea Agnelli who was the former chairman has been handed a 24 months ban and former sports director Fabio Andrea Agnelli has been handed a 30-month ban. Agnelli now works as the transfer director for English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur.

Juventus has announced that it would challenge the ban saying, “We consider this to be a blatant injustice also for millions of fans, which we trust will soon be remedied in the next court.” Juventus has denied any wrongdoing and said their accounting was in line with industry standards. The club is controlled by the Agnelli family’s Exor holding company and its shares are listed on the Milan stock exchange.

There are reports of money paid under the table to football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo who signed for the Old Lady in a $100 million deal in 2018.

The news comes 17 years after the “Calciopoli” refereeing scandal that resulted in Juventus, record 36-time Italian champions, being demoted to Serie B and stripped of two Serie A titles. They had managed to come out stronger post the Seria A disqualification but another scandal just 17 years later has put a huge dent on Juventus’s reputation.

The news has shaken the footballing world and Twitter was understandably was buzzing as the news broke through.

Here’s how fans reacted to Juventus’s 15 points penalty in Seria A: