Suarez’s rigged language exam was nothing to do with me, says Agnelli
TURIN: Andrea Agnelli, under-pressure president of Juventus, has told an Italian prosecutor in Perugia trhat he was not responsible for fixing the Italian language examination of the Luis Suárez last year.
The Uruguayan was then a Barcelona player and a target of the Turin club before signing for Atlético Madrid.
According to reports on his appearance in January before prosecutor Raffaele Cantone, Agnelli said he learned that Suárez would pass the Italian language exam at the University for Foreigners of Perugia “from the newspapers” and that the topic was “entirely managed” by Juventus sporting director Fabio Paratici.
Agnelli said: “Paratici has extensive rights of action within the limits of the budget. The decisions on the transfer of the players belong to him. Obviously, he informs me of his decisions.”
The Juventus president acknowledged, on the other hand, that he knew that Suárez was interested in signing for the Turin club because the vice president, the Czech Pavel Nedved, had told him so in August 2020.
Agnelli added: “I remember that at a lunch at the end of August Nedved told me that the Barcelona player had offered himself to Juventus with a message. In this period we had several open negotiations with (the Bosnian Edin) Dzeko, (the Polish Arkadiusz) Milik, (Uruguayan Edinson) Cavani and (Spanish Álvaro) Morata, so we finally signed, in addition to the Suarez option, “said Agnelli.
“At the beginning of September I was told that the signing of Suárez was difficult because he did not have European Union citizenship.”
On September 17, 2020, Suárez attended the University for Foreigners of Perugia to obtain a B1 certificate of sufficient knowledge of the Italian language necessary to obtain an Italian passport, which would facilitate his transfer to Juventus.
Italian investigators justice discovered later, thanks to telephone interceptions and the registration of e-mails, that the exam had been rigged and that some university professors had given Suárez the questions days earlier.
Suárez himself, interviewed by the prosecutor as a witness, has acknowledged that the questions were sent to him by mail to facilitate the obtaining of the certificate.
The Italian authorities have suspended from their functions for eight months those responsible for the University for Foreigners of Perugia who organized and rigged the citizenship test.
for Suárez, who, finding it impossible to close his signing for Juventus, signed for the Atletico Madrid.
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