Juventus Sentenced to Give Some Money Back to Ronaldo

Juventus will have to shell out nearly €10M to Cristiano Ronaldo, pending further legal actions, due to previous unpaid wages after losing in arbitration. The Portuguese ace had asked for double that sum, but the judges slashed it due to contributory negligence, Corriere della Sera informs.

The controversy has been going on since the departure of the attacker. He and most of the squad agreed to give up part multiple monthly salaries twice during the COVID pandemic, with the promise of getting them back eventually. Serie A was initially stopped for four months with no certainties about its resumptions.

Ronaldo took advantage of the evidence from the various inquiries into the finances of Juventus in recent years. On the sports side, the club decided not to fight the accusation of misconduct as far as the ‘manovra stipendi’ was concerned after getting docked 10 points for the ‘plusvalenze.’ It plea-bargained a small fine. The Bianconeri initially saved €60M thanks to those agreements.

The team argued that the striker renounced the money once he joined Manchester United, signing a document stating there were no outstanding debts. However, the judges deemed that the matter wasn’t clearly spelled out in it. They cited a wiretap between two execs being concerned about it after the transfer as one of the reasons for the ruling, which wasn’t unanimous.

Juventus hadn’t set aside the figure in their previous balance sheets as they were confident to beat Ronaldo in court. They issued a statement saying they would assess the next steps to protect their rights.