Andrea Agnelli took over a crippled post-Calciopoli Juventus in 2010 and oversaw their most successful ever period, until it all came crashing down with his resignation late last night, writes Apollo Heyes.
Agnelli took over as chairman of the Bianconeri in May 2010 after being appointed by his first cousin John Elkann, the chairman of Exor which holds a controlling stake in the club, following a few years working for Ferrari and Philip Morris International. He became the fourth Agnelli to run the club and his appointment was celebrated by fans, who hoped that some stability would return after a difficult few years.
The early aspects of Agnelli’s management saw success after success; he quickly hired then-Sampdoria CEO Giuseppe Marotta to help manage the sporting affairs, a genius decision that majorly benefitted Juventus on the transfer market, and he also helped the Allianz Stadium project get across the line.
Agnelli’s first season in charge of Juventus saw them finish 7th, the same position as the year prior, and this is where the chairman’s next major success came, the appointment of Antonio Conte.
When the Bianconeri hired Conte in May 2011, it had been nine years since their last retained Scudetto and the team looked to be in dire straits, so the appointment of the former Siena coach was an exciting but risky move. It paid off. Juventus finished the season unbeaten in Serie A and picked up their first Scudetto after the Calciopoli scandal, finally returning to the upper echelons of Italian football.
The next few years were a major success for Agnelli and Juventus, even if a slight blip in 2016 regarding the sale of tickets to ultra groups saw him briefly banned – lifted two months later – and fined €100,000, with the club having to pay a €600,000 fine.
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Things were all rosy for the Bianconeri chairman and he was rising up the ranks of the European Club Association (ECA), being a member of the executive board and later representing the ECA on the UEFA Executive Committee.
The departure of Conte was handled well in hindsight and the club seemingly found the perfect replacement in Massimiliano Allegri, who continued to pick up Scudetto after Scudetto in the Piedmont capital.
Within the space of a decade, Agnelli had helped guide Juventus to a record nine consecutive Scudetti, four Coppa Italia titles, five Supercoppa Italiana titles and two Champions League Finals. The Old Lady had an iron grip on Serie A and didn’t look at risk of losing control, but a small frustration would soon grow into an infuriating obsession.
Juventus had dominated in Serie A for years under Agnelli but were unable to get their hands on the most coveted prize in European club football: the Champions League. Their last victorious campaign in the competition came in the 1995-96 season and the Bianconeri chairman was desperate to bring the trophy back to Turin again.
This desperation to win the Champions League is seemingly a key element in the eventual downfall of Agnelli. After two runners-up medals under Allegri, the club decided to hedge their bets and bring in an expert of the competition, five-time Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo. This move didn’t come cheap, costing Juventus €117m in transfer fees alone in July 2018.
A year later, Allegri was dismissed and replaced by former Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri, who Agnelli hoped would take Juventus to European glory with his electric attacking football. This didn’t work and despite Sarri’s success in Serie A, his Round of 16 exit in the competition spelt the end of his brief tenure in Turin.
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By this point, the losses in Juventus’ balance sheets continued to grow, especially after the COVID pandemic, and a year with the untested Andrea Pirlo at the helm also failed to bring the top prize to Piedmont, leaving Agnelli incredibly frustrated.
Agnelli’s most infamous misstep came in April 2021, when he resigned from the ECA and UEFA Executive Committee to become the vice-chairman of the newly revealed Super League project, an idea that was hated by almost every supporter across Europe, but backed by most Juventus supporters.
Despite the opposition, Agnelli refused to give up on the idea and remained attached to the project right up to his recent resignation, believing it to be the right future for Juventus and European football.
Some suggested that the Juventus chairman’s love for the Super League project was partly born from the fact that teams like Porto, Lyon and Ajax had knocked out the Old Lady from the Champions League in preceding years, whilst others pointed to the obvious financial incentives the top clubs like Juventus and Barcelona would receive from the new system.
In reality, financial issues had been quietly plaguing Juventus for years and Agnelli’s work to resolve it only caused further problems. Since 2019, the club had allegedly falsified capital gains in 42 different deals, working to help balance their books, and recently they’ve been in the spotlight for allegedly paying their players in secret during the initial COVID pandemic, despite claiming publicly that these wages had been forgone.
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Whilst the Old Lady were cleared of wrongdoing in the capital gains sporting trial, the criminal case is still ongoing and any newly revealed evidence could see the sporting trial re-opened.
Agnelli resigned yesterday, ending a 12-year spell in charge of Juventus. He arrived amidst the ashes of the Calciopoli scandal, took the club to heights they’d never hit domestically but ultimately left the team disgraced after their Champions League obsession led them down a path of serious financial problems.