Another Serie A shambles: Uncertainty over Juventus' points deduction calls the integrity of the league into question

The Bianconeri had initially been sanctioned in January for "financial irregularities" and "false accounting" in relation to past transfer dealings, such as the infamous swap deal involving Miralem Pjanic and Arthur Melo.

The severity of the sentence surprised many in the media, not least because the chief prosecutor had only requested a nine-point penalty.

Juve predictably appealed to CONI's (the Italian Olympic Committee) Collegio di Garanzia, the country's highest sporting court, with their lawyers claiming that the deduction and bans issued to 11 past or current club directors constituted "a clear disparity of treatment against Juventus and its managers compared any other company or member".

Remember, 11 clubs and 59 executives had been implicated during the original investigation into breaches of rules relating to 'plusvalenza' (capital gains) - essentially, allegations that clubs were inflating transfer fees in order to balance the books.

They were all initially cleared of any wrongdoing, partly because of the difficulty involved in objectively establishing the value of a footballer.

It was even revealed that prosecutors had relied too heavily on values derived by the website transfermakt.com, which hardly inspires confidence in the sporting justice system in Italy.

The case was reopened, though, because of new evidence brought to light by the separate criminal investigation overseen by the Turin Public Prosecutor, called 'Prisma', which focuses on alleged breaches of "the integrity of sporting competition" and, far more significantly, false accounting related to salaries.

According to widespread reports, prosecutors came into possession of a 'black book' owned by former Juve sporting director Fabio Paratici, which allegedly contains all of the true numbers involved in the transfer deals at the centre of the affair.

It was also claimed that the investigators have unearthed admissions of guilt via wiretaps involving several Juventus directors, including former president Agnelli and CEO Maurizio Arrivabene.

Consequently, the FIGC prosecutor, Giuseppe Chine, appealed the previous ruling and the case was reopened in December.

This time around, only nine of the original 11 clubs were implicated, but Juve remained the focus of the investigation because of the apparent weight of evidence against them, and their allegedly repeated attempts to circumvent the plusvalenza regulations.

However, during a three-hour hearing on Wednesday, CONI prosecutor Ugo Taucer admitted that the original ruling lacked a level of "clarity that must be appreciated and evaluated by a new judgement."

Essentially, the case will go back to the Italian Football Federation's (FIGC) Federal Court of Appeal.

The hope is that the matter will be resolved once and for all within a month - before the end of the Serie A season on June 4.

But there is no guarantee of that actually happening, not least because Juve could, in theory, take the case back to CONI if the FIGC appeal goes against them.

In such a nightmare scenario, the case would not only drag on into the summer but potentially into next season, evoking memories of the Calciopoli scandal of 2006.

The net result is uncertainty, because every outcome is possible: the deduction could be quashed, reduced, upheld or even increased.

There's also the prospect of finishing in the top four of Serie A and yet being blocked by UEFA from competing in next season's Champions League if the club is subsequently found to have falsified its accounts.

So, while Juventus have effectively won a minor battle this week, the war is far from over, and not just because of the ongoing threat posed by the far more serious Prisma investigation.

As many financial experts have pointed out, the plusvalenza affair still might end badly for the Bianconeri, particularly as the FIGC has essentially been told through the CONI hearing where it needs to firm up its case.

We've also learned that if Juve are found guilty, any sanctions imposed will have to be consequential, making it highly unlikely that they'd be stripped of a top-four finish no matter what.

Because while the temporary suspension of the points deduction didn't come as a surprise, the decision to uphold the bans on Agnelli, Paratici, Arrivabene and Federico Cherubini most certainly did.

That ruling suggests that Juve still have a case to answer in terms of Article 4 of the FIGC's sporting justice code, which essentially relates to fair play.

Juve are basically being accused of gaining an unfair advantage over rivals by allegedly circumventing the plusvalenza regulations repeatedly.

However, it's worth considering that it usually takes two clubs to set a transfer fee, so we could yet end up with several more teams being thrust back into the spotlight, which would cause further chaos.

Obviously, justice needs to be done here, but it needs to be decisive as well as swift because the current situation is utterly unacceptable.

On Thursday evening, when Italian football fans should have been celebrating the presence of five Serie A sides in the semi-finals of the three UEFA club competitions, they were instead once again locked in a bitter debate about the legitimacy of the table - one that will rumble on for at least another month.

The integrity of the entire competition has been quite rightly called into question.

At the very least, this is hugely embarrassing for the Serie A brand. The league has long struggled to shake off its reputation for incompetence and controversy, so this latest farcical episode hardly helps matters.

"I will never get into the merits of a sentence, but this uncertainty doesn't help," Italy's minister of sport Andrea Abodi told reporters on Friday. "But where there is competition, the certainty of punishment must be combined with general interests.

"Something needs to be changed to make decisions understandable, and the timing respectful of the competition's reputation.

"I will do my part, possibly in conjunction with my government colleagues and by listening to the parties involved, so that there is a reform of sports justice."

Such reform will come far too late, though, to quell talk of this year's table being falsified.

Juve can now go second in the table with a win over Napoli on Sunday night but as even club legend Marco Tardelli write in La Stampa, "a long and dark cloud looms above an irremediably distorted season".

The focus right now should be firmly on Napoli's imminent fairy-tale title triumph and a Milan derby in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

Instead, we are again talking about the wrong kind of penalty appeals and trying to come to terms with the fact that this season's standings will be decided as much by what happens in the courts as what unfolds on the field.

Of course, this shouldn't come as a shock to any of us. We're in Italy, after all, and if you don't laugh, you really will cry...