No, Ronaldo is the creditor. Meaning he either gave them funds directly, or received a reduced rate of pay in lieu of a reimbursement or some other general asset.
If you have a credit card from X Bank, they pay your bills, you then pay the bank back the amount of the funds plus a percentage.
In this situation, Ronaldo is the bank and Juve are the credit card.
"Meaning it has no accounting significance" can be kind of.....meh.... one of two things. Either Juve tried to outright defraud him and later said "oh shit, we forgot, our bad!" OR the sum is so insignificant to Ronaldo that it would cost him more in time and effort to retrieve the funds than the total value of the outstanding amount.
Plus, it's easier for an individual to write it off as "bad debt" on taxes than go back and amend the taxes three years later. However, he could show the asset in the current tax year, but would have to explain why it "disappeared" on his income statement/balance sheet from the years prior.
I'm an accountant.
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Owing someone money isn't a crime.
It is, however, a crime to owe someone money (a liability) and not report or record it on your balance sheet. It's like if a bank was trying to figure out your risk for borrowing money to buy a house, but you didn't disclose you had six car loans from other banks.
It makes your club look both mad shady and reduces total liability (total debt) making it easier for them to borrow money, make sponsorship deals, etc.
At the end of the day, they hid debts to try and look more profitable. If your company is a publicly traded company, that's called "deceiving the investors or shareholders," it's fraud, and it's a serious deal.
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I love your club so much.
Your precious Bremer to Padova.