By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Juventus (BIT:JUVE) stock slumped as much as 12% on Monday after the Italian soccer federation FIGC docked the club 15 points for misreporting its transfer dealings.
The penalty was larger than the 9 points requested by the country's prosecutors, whose investigation into the club's historic transfer deals had already caused its board to resign en masse in November.
The FIGC also banned 10 former Juventus board members including former president Andrea Agnelli, ex-CEO Maurizio Arrivabene (currently principal of the Ferrari F1 motor racing team), and former director of football Fabio Paratici, who now holds the same position at English club Tottenham Hotspur. The FIGC is requesting UEFA and FIFA to apply those bans worldwide.
At the same time, the FIGC cleared eight other clubs who had also been investigated along with Juventus, prompting the club to complain of being unfairly singled out for punishment.
In a statement, lawyers representing Juventus said the FIGC's actions "constitute a clear disparity of treatment against Juventus and its executives compared to any other company or member."
The 15-point penalty pushes Juve well down the Serie A table and makes it effectively impossible for it to qualify for the lucrative UEFA Champions League next season. Shares in Lazio (BIT:LAZI) and Roma, whose chances of qualification have accordingly increased, failed to get any boost from the news, however. Lazio stock fell 1.5%.
The episode is the latest in a scandal-plagued history for Italy's most successful soccer club, which has been eclipsed by its Spanish and English rivals on the world stage in recent years. The club was demoted to the second division of the Italian league and stripped of two titles in 2006 after a match-fixing scandal.
Agnelli, whose ban lasts for two years, had been one of the architects of a failed plan to form a breakaway European Super League in 2021.
By 05:10 ET (10:10 GMT), Juventus stock had recovered more than half of its initial losses, trading down 4.3% from Friday's close. It's lost 75% of its value over the last three years.