The Juventus board, including president Andrea Agnelli and vice-chairman Pavel Nedved, resigned from their positions en masse on Monday.
The extraordinary collective resignation comes after the club’s financial statements underwent scrutiny by prosecutors and the Italian market regulator in recent months for alleged false accounting and market manipulation.
The investigation concerned “revenues from player registration rights” between 2019 and 2021. The club, who are listed on the Italian stock exchange, has denied any wrongdoing.
The club finished fourth in Serie A last season and made a €254.3 million (£220 million) loss — a record in Italian football.
The club also postponed their shareholders’ meeting last week, moving it from November 23 to December 27.
The board stepped down “having considered the centrality and relevance of pending legal and accounting issues”, a statement that was published late on Monday said.
The outgoing board “considered (it) to be in the best social interest to recommend that Juventus equip itself with a new board of directors to address these issues.”
It added: “Each of the three directors with powers (the Chairman of the Board of Directors Andrea Agnelli, the Vice Chairman Pavel Nedved and the Chief Executive Officer Maurizio Arrivabene) has considered (it) appropriate to forego the powers granted to them.
“The Board of Directors has, however, asked Maurizio Arrivabene to maintain the position of CEO.”
Arrivabene will remain in this role for an interim period while a new board is brought together.
The full board of directors also includes Laurence Debroux, Massimo Della Ragione, Kathryn Fink, Daniela Marilungo, Francesco Roncaglio, Giorgio Tacchia and Suzanne Heywood, as well as Agnelli, Nedved and Arrivabene.
Agnelli, 46, has been the chairman of the club since 2010 and has also been a key figure in the push for a breakaway European Super League.
Agnelli was a key figure in the drive for a European Super League (Photo: Getty Images)
He succeeded Jean-Claude Blanc as Juventus chairman in 2010, becoming the fourth member of the Agnelli family to run the football club after his father, his uncle and his grandfather.
Agnelli took over a club still rocked by the infamous Calciopoli scandal, but oversaw a successful move to a new stadium and also helped to balance the team’s finances.
Juventus won nine scudetti in a row under his stewardship, although results in recent months have been underwhelming and the Turin club currently trail bitter rivals Napoli by ten points in Serie A.
Agnelli was previously the chairman of the European Club Association and a member of the UEFA Executive Committee, but he stepped down from both of these roles when Juventus announced they were a founding member of the Super League.
Nine clubs immediately withdrew, leaving Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid as the only three clubs determined to push through the plans.
The former Czech Republic international Nedved, 50, was appointed vice chairman of the board of directors in 2015.
(Photo: Getty Images)
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