Due to tough circumstances and poor management, Juventus now find themselves facing a major financial crisis.
The reasons are numerous and the culprits are several, but during the summer, club president Andrea Agnelli made the right call by appointing Maurizio Arrivabene as the new CEO.
The former Ferrari director is a financial expert, and his job in short, is to clean the mess created by Agnelli and former sporting director Fabio Paratici during the last few years.
Unfortunately for new sporting director Federico Cherubini, his job became significantly more complicated in the presence of a CEO who has apparently installed some new rules that the club must follow on the transfer market.
Essentially, Arrivabene won’t sanction deals for players who are above the age 30, will no longer allow agents to came away with exaggerated fees and won’t consent the signing of free agents who will require hefty wages.
Arrivabene has clear ideas on the guidelines to follow in the mercato:
– No deals that cannot create value (so no over 30s).
– No exaggerated fee’s for agents.
– No contract terminations.
– No hasty renewals.
– No players on a free with unsustainable fees.(@CorSport) pic.twitter.com/jU2ijJ1EFW
— JuveFC (@juvefcdotcom) December 28, 2021
For the majority of Juventus fans, this will be music to their ears. After all, the club’s downfall was instigated by unwise and hasty decisions that saw Juventus spending too much on players who offered very little in return.
However, and if the reported rulebook is indeed true, one should wonder if this strict protocol will pay dividends.
While adopting the right set of rules and applying them is always a step in the right direction, having Too many rules could end up being counterproductive.
Let’s take Milan as an example. They were having tough times as well during the final years of the Berlusconi era.
Back then, the Rossoneri adopted a policy which stated that players who are over the age of 30 would only be offered one-year contracts.
Well. Andrea Pirlo didn’t like that one. Instead, he took the highway between Milano and Torino, and the rest is history.
Now this doesn’t necessarily mean that applying certain rules would be a bad thing. Not at all.
But perhaps Juventus need to be pragmatic rather than stubborn while applying the new policy.
We can understand why Arrivabene will be reluctant to offer hefty wages to attract free agents following the disastrous Ramsey and Rabiot businesses.
However, we should also remember that the club’s renaissance in 2011 was built upon poaching the likes of Pirlo, Paul Pogba and Andrea Barzagli by offering them better terms than our competitors.
At the end of the day, Arrivabene is far from being a footballing expert. He’s at Juventus to constantly remind the management of the need to balance the sheet.
Therefore, it will all depend on Cherubini’s ability to make the right calls and sign the right players.
While we’re still unsure whether the new sporting director is the right person for the job, but the man deserves a chance.
So if Agnelli truly trusts Cherubini, then the latter should be allowed to follow his instinct on the transfer market, even if doesn’t always comply with Arrivabene’s rulebook.