Prosecutors ask for four to stand trial for Suarez Italian test

Italian prosecutors have asked for three university officials and a lawyer to stand trial for allegedly helping Luis Suarez pass a language test ahead of a move to Juventus that fell through, media reports said Monday.

Prosecutors in the central Italian city of Perugia accused the former dean, general director and rector of Perugia’s University for Foreigners, as well as a Juventus lawyer, of helping the Uruguayan player cheat on an Italian exam.  

The exam would have been the first step to procuring an Italian passport for Suarez as Juventus had already filled its quota for non-EU players.

The transfer never happened, and the player ended up joining Atletico Madrid from Barcelona.

Suarez, who has been called as a witness in the case, has admitted receiving the questions in advance of the September 17 test, according to Il Sole 24 Ore business newspaper.

In one of the wiretaps ordered by the prosecutor’s office and cited by several Italian media outlets, one of the suspects said that Suarez cannot conjugate verbs and speaks in the infinitive but it was essential that he pass the test because “with a salary of 10 million (euros) per season, you can’t make him fail”.

One of the Italian professors involved in the case has already negotiated a one-year suspended sentence, the reports said.

A preliminary hearing on whether the four suspects should stand trial is scheduled for September 28.