Angry Juventus fans cancel Sky, DAZN subscriptions in £136m protest at club docked 15 points

Around 500,000 frustrated Juventus supporters have canceled their TV sports subscriptions in protest at their club’s 15-point deduction.

The Italian giants have been docked 15 points by an Italian court after an inquiry into their transfer deals that also saw Tottenham boss Fabio Paratici handed a two-and-a-half-year ban for his role.

In response, half a million angry fans are canceling their Sky and DAZN subscriptions in protest of the decision – a stunt that will cost broadcasters around £136million in revenue.

Half a million angry Juventus supporters have canceled their Sky and DAZN TV subscriptions

The Italian giants have been docked with 15 points following an investigation into their transfer deals

The federal prosecutor demanded that Juve be deducted 15 points and that fines should only be distributed to the other clubs involved.

Italian publication Corriere della Sera reports that the spate of canceled subscriptions has created an “unprecedented financial abyss” in the first massive crackdown on paid TV subscriptions in Italian football history.

Sole24Ore adds that around £275 a year is received from an average single subscriber over the course of the season, meaning that 500,000 cancellations would see TV companies lose around £136m.

Given the Italian Football Federation’s latest report for 2020-21, which shows that 47 per cent of broadcasters’ total revenues come from these subscriptions, it would be a short circuit for the entire Serie A system if fans abandoned them in droves.

The deduction saw Massimiliano Allegri’s side drop from titular 3rd to 10th in Serie A

The mass protest by frustrated fans could cost the broadcasters around £136m in revenue

According to a survey by StageUp and Ipsos, Juve fans have by far the most season tickets in Italy, almost three times as many as Inter Milan.

More cancellations are expected to follow amid ongoing protests on social media, with the hashtags #DisdettaDAZN and #DisdettaSky (Disdetta means cancel) trending on Twitter, racking up more than 11,000 tweets in a matter of hours.

Corriere del Mezzogiorno reports that the Puglia region, which is largely made up of Juve fans, has seen 13,000 cancellations in just 24 hours, a practice that could become standard across southern Italy.

Juventus is the most supported team in Italy with more than 8.73 million fans out of a total of around 14 million. Losing a significant chunk of that audience could mean streaming giant DAZN – which has 2 million subscribers in Italy and shows every single Serie A game – will see its coffers collapse.