The investigation into Juventus finances has also provided some intriguing secrets of their approaches for Erling Haaland, Nicolò Zaniolo, Sandro Tonali and Gianluigi Donnarumma, plus other moves that did go through.
As part of the investigation from the public prosecutor of Turin into financial irregularities, Juve directors were regularly wiretapped and the details have since been released as part of their evidence dossier to request a trial.
There is no jury system in Italy, so evidence regularly gets released to the public because there is no risk of influencing a jury.
An email from November 2019 was sent by director Fabio Paratici – who has since left to join Tottenham Hotspur – to his assistant Federico Cherubini.
Also involved was Claudio Chiellini, the brother of defender Giorgio and currently the director of sport at Pisa, but at the time was working for Juventus in their scouting network.
“Young players to track: Haaland – Malen – Zaniolo – Kulusevski – Tonali – Kumbulla. Milik and Donnarumma to be tracked as their contracts run down in 2021.”
Some of those moves did indeed go through eventually, albeit in a different way to what was expected in 2019.
Dejan Kulusevski was purchased from Atalanta in January 2020 for €35m and left on loan at Parma for another six months, before his sale to Tottenham Hotspur.
Arkadiusz Milik did move to Juve eventually on loan from Olympique Marseille, but it was well known in 2020 that he was pushing to leave Napoli for Juventus, with the Partenopei refusing to let him make that switch.
Gianluigi Donnarumma did let his contract with Milan run down and it was widely reported that Juventus decided against signing him, so he went to PSG instead.
As for others, Juventus had been tracking Haaland since at least 2018 when he was at Molde, but at the time they backed out because he would’ve only joined the Under-23 squad.