Juventus President Andrea Agnelli explains why the club didn’t offer a new contract to Paulo Dybala and compares the Premier League and the Super League.
Agnelli spoke to an event organised by Il Foglio at San Siro yesterday. He touched on multiple topics, including deciding to part ways with Paulo Dybala at the end of the season. The Old Lady had reached an agreement over a new €10m-a-year deal at the end of 2021, but changed their plans after signing Dusan Vlahovic in January.
“Dybala has given everything for Juventus, he is a great player, but decisions are determined by moments,” said Agnelli as quoted by Tuttosport newspaper.
“In December, I would have said that signing Vlahovic was impossible, in January, I thought that it was difficult. I was thinking about a possible agreement, not a transfer.
“Making an unsustainable offer would have been unfair for the club and Dybala. There are limited resources and we must choose. We picked Vlahovic, De Ligt, Locatelli…We want to make Juventus younger with a group of Italian players, closer to the fans and the club’s values. Quality players who will allow us to keep our ambitions.”
New twist in Super League saga as Juve, Barça and Madrid could face UEFA sanctions
Agnelli was among the main architects of the Super League, the breakaway project that collapsed within 48 hours from its launch last year. Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona remain among the club involved in the project but could soon face UEFA sanctions as the commercial court in Madrid has lifted the injunction imposed on UEFA.
Agnelli believes that a Super League already exists and is the Engish Premier League.
“Slowly, the Premier League will attract all the talent, which goes where it’s better paid. There is already a Super League,” he said.
“We could have two English teams in the Champions League Final, one in the Europa League, perhaps against a Scottish one.
“There is one Premier League at the start of the season, and another one from March onwards. The current system is locked, the same teams always win domestically. With the Super League, we wanted to create a dialogue with UEFA and FIFA, the definition of the competition’s format is something else and would come later.
“UEFA is regulator, judge, commercial operator, monopolist: it is not modern governance and is the focal point for the appeal to the European Court for free competition in the free market. Today there is no dialogue, but the rapport and the shared ideas we have on specific issues remain. Ceferin thought it was a personal attack. It wasn’t.”
Giorgio Chiellini could leave the club in the summer despite having a contract until 2023. Italy’s elimination from the World Cup play-offs could convince the defender to move to the MLS for the final year of his career or retire at the end of the season. On the other hand, Del Piero returned to the Allianz Stadium for a Juventus game two weeks ago, but a return to the club isn’t on the cards at the moment.
“Chiellini must talk to his family and the club, we’ll meet at the end of the season,” said Agnelli.
“Giorgio has a place for him at the club and he knows that, but being a great sportsman doesn’t mean becoming a great executive. I’ve tutored Pavel Nedved, but I had Marotta and Paratici with me. We must be careful in adding too many figures coming from the pitch.
“Del Piero is always welcome. He lives with his family in Los Angeles, he works as a pundit and I think he has a happy life. Joining the club means changing lifestyle completely for everyone.”
#Agnelli spiega il futuro #Juve. #Chiellini, #Allegri, #DelPiero e i dirigenti: ecco cosa pensa 🔥 https://t.co/3BxJAzynri
— Tuttosport (@tuttosport) April 29, 2022
Horrible man
That horrible man has a point though! The super league already being the premier league.
When did it become fair for one league to earn 5 x times more than the others? Look back to the early 90s when the PL was established, their league was inferior to serie A.
Agnelli always 100% sense
The Premier League was inferior to Serie A in the 90’s. Serie A also spent a lot of money back then and had the best players from around the world. Sound familiar? The Premier League is entertaining to watch and divides the money out equally between clubs, so all teams have better squads and have a chance of beating each other. It is a better product than Serie A and La Liga, so enjoys much better success worldwide – so more money comes in from fans/sponsors. It is totally fair – give your clubs more money, rather than the top 2 or 3 getting the lions share – that would be a good start.
@Milanista. I am a fan of serie a and always have been, will continue to be in the coming years also. Your point about one league earning 5x as much as the others is exactly what Serie A was like in the 90s. We generated the most revenue, had all the best players and gave players the highest wages. Unfortunately we just could not keep up and now it’s the turn of the PL so let them have it.
@Juvefan1987 they’ve had it long enough, time for a change, don’t you think?
If I take a different sport like F1, it’s not long till they change the rules to balance the playing field. The NBA does it with their drafting process, giving the best college players to the lowest ranked team.
It’s time we start looking at alternatives. I wonder if they could establish a super league without the premier league?
juve can afford plyers like Ronaldo, De Licht, Vlahovic and more.. but still choose to play ugly and outdated football. its not the economic power of the EPL its the italian football way of thinking that prevet italian teams to become competitive.
Agnelli should learn from AC MILAN how to be a modern team that can beat anyone even with little experience and very young team. milan with almost zero experience played against MAN UTD, and ATLETICO MADRID and played much better then them.
Italians got punch drunk off the back of their Serie A success, and naturally became slack, stopped trying, and fell behind!! Calcipoli did not help. To think that Juve is the only club that owns its own stadium is really unthinkable in this day and age!!! Italian football needs a shift in its mentality.
It certainly has the talent and the know how to become supreme again but it needs a small revolution..
As a Juventino, I have to agree with a Milanista on this one. I’m not a fan of Agnelli (he’s not his predecessors by any stretch of the imagination) but he’s not wrong in his observations. The PL has it, yes, but with the money that’s in it now, there’s no way the balance will tip in the direction of any other league. And within the PL, as he says, there are 2 teams (4 at a major push) who compete and the rest is filler. Same in Spain, and Italy to a large degree. Germany is 1 team, France is 1. So the tiered system already exists. UEFA is a monopoly who makes unilateral decisions to mess things up… Just look at how they removed the away goal rule for no good reason. Time for change.
Agree with him about the super league. It is needed to maintain interest, and to compete with the English super league.
The Champions “League” has becoming boring and very very predictable. The group stages are a total waste of time, and in the knockout rounds you always lose big teams and great players. How much did we get to see of Messi, Mbappe, Haaland, Ronaldo, Lewandowski against Other big European teams? If there was a REAL LEAGUE those players would be seen more. More entertainment fir the neutral.
The only thing that has saved the UCL this year has been Benzema, but unfortunataly that means more Real Madrid who seem to win it ALL the time- another boring element of the UCL.
Change is needed. A euro super league is the only way, but I do think that all teams should still have to qualify every year- a closed shop is not right and against the spirit of the sport
@Juvefan1987. I have to agree with you on this, because Serie A was practically the Premier League of the 90s. For a fan of Italian football it was beautiful to watch and back then we did not really care about the inferiority of other European clubs. The roles are now changed and it’s obviously a bitter pill for us.
The major English clubs were smart and forward thinking, decided to establish the PL and sell it as ONE SINGLE PRODUCT from marketing perspective, instead of promoting only the very best (ManUTD, Arsenal, Liverpool). They had a clear concept on what they want to achieve and how. We can say it worked out brilliantly and cannot blame them for their success, that would be unfair. Now, even the major European clubs struggle to keep the pace with them. Until Italians don’t realize they should invest pretty much in infrastructure (because that’s awful all around the country) and try doing something similar to the PL, they won’t be able to reduce the gap. The football tradition and supporters are there.
Super League and selling Dybala are two mistakes.
I think people exaggerate the EPL! Yes it has money and marketed very well, but up until several years back they were in danger of losing a 4th spot for champs league! This was a reality yet the rules changed in their favour again! It’s no coincidence it’s a cash cow for uefa..problem with Italian football is mentality and culture there is way too much politics involved and red tape when it comes to stadiums in particular! And rather than being united as a whole they stab each other in the back, you would never see this in the EPL because although it exists it’s never highlighted to the extent it is in Italy, because they have a product to sell! FFP is another farce always has been and the new rules for that too again favour the EPL there is no way the smaller clubs in England bring in that much revenue, even spurs £1billion for a stadium is in heard of so where did the money come from? serie A in the 90s was bliss and not completely dominated by foreign legions, u take away foreign owners / managers from the EPL and a certain number of players what are u left with? And it shows in the national team…Italians NEED to Change their approach and mentality or the divide is only going to get bigger…
When you look at the past 10 years, Agnelli and Juventus has no right to complain about the EPL. Juventus have had a lot of revenue compared to other teams and so have dominated the league for the past 10 years
and was competitive in Europe too, playing the champions League final twice until they started dismantling the team and changing coaches and directors every season.. The moment Cr7 came, Higuain and Madzukic were thrown out, they started wasting money on players that has given the team nothing and this is exactly the same problem this Barcelona team has been facing before Xavi seems to steadied the ship now.. They spent large amount of money on players that don’t deliver and the following season sells them off with a great loss…( for me Juventus going down has been their management) Then there’s the issue of infrastructure in Italy that has kept the teams down but this doesn’t affect Juventus
Italian league has had it’s time and now it’s time for the EPL and they have to focus, come together and try to revolutionize their entire systems… Let new investors come in and cut off corruption from the sport
It is not England’s fault that Italy have not managed to develop their league in twenty years. Super league is dead.
Isn’t it time for salary caps to balance it out a little and avoid teams from overspending as FPP doesn’t really work.
The problem is Italy as a whole. Stadiums are the biggest problem when it comes to attracting viewers, but it’s rooted in the politics of Italian football. Juve are one of the biggest and most successful clubs in history and barely make the TOP10 in revenue league. Clubs like West Ham have no business paying for top talent yet they do. Mid table english teams without European football have more spending power than top Italian teams. it’s just sad.