Milan And Juventus’ Tough Stance On Kessie And Dybala Proves Serie A Clubs Are Spending Smarter

We are seeing a turning point in the Italian game.

Juventus sporting director Maurizio Arrivabene’s announcement earlier this week that Paulo Dybala will be leaving the club at the end of the season came as a bit of a shock.

Even to the most eagle-eyed observer at Juve, most expected that the club would at the very least lowball Dybala into a less lucrative deal in order to entice the No.10 to remain at the club for the next several years. But that wasn’t the case.

Arrivabene and Juve didn’t even give Dybala and his entourage the chance to reject such a lowball offer, they flat out told the player’s representatives that a new contract wasn’t forthcoming.

“We made our choices in January, we got here. It would have been easy for Juventus to make a low bid, but it would have been disrespectful towards Paulo. The decision is made. Today’s meeting was friendly, clear and respectful,” said Arrivabene this week.

“Dybala is no longer at the centre of the Juve project,” he continued.

Dybala’s inability to remain fit has been seen as the deciding factor in Juve ultimately not opting to renew his deal. And this makes sense, the player has become increasingly fragile over the last two years, and when Juve have needed him most in Champions League knockout fixtures, he’s been inevitably injured.

Moreover, Juve simply aren’t in a financial state whereby they can offer Dybala a yearly salary of €10m (net) per-season. The club are shredding costs in the aftermath of the pandemic, and Dybala is viewed as a sacrifice needed to be made in order to bring overall costs down.

But the Dybala case isn’t the only one this week where we have seen a club refuse to kowtow to a player’s demands. Milan have refused to meet Franck Kessie’s demands to extend his stay at Milan beyond this summer. For months, talks started and broke down, restarted and broke down again.

This week, news broke through that it’s all-but-confirmed that Kessie will sign for Barcelona on a free transfer this summer. Milan had offered a flat rate of €6m-per-season to the Ivorian, and according to Fabrizio Romano, Kessie will earn €6.5m-per-season plus bonuses, bringing that figure closer to the €7m mark.

Milan’s refusal to give in to his demands follows on from last summer, when they did likewise with Gianluigi Donnarumma and Hakan Calhanoglu, allowing both to leave on free transfers. The Rossoneri, under the stern leadership of Elliott Management, have a wage structure that they don’t intend to break as they battle to bring costs down. Over the last year, Milan have reduced their club debt from €196m to €96m, with that figure expected to drop at the end of the year with the club back in the Champions League.

We are finally seeing Serie A sides refusing to give in to player’s whims, and choose financial health over filling a star player’s pockets. This is no doubt a legacy of the pandemic, with Italian sides hit harder than most. It’s estimated that Serie A clubs lost a combined €1bn in the last two years, with total club debt now standing at around €3.4bn.

The days of handing players like Aaron Ramsey £400k-per-week are long gone.

In its place will see clubs take a more frugal approach, and this doesn’t necessarily mean a drop in quality. Milan’s wage bill is around €80m for 2021-22, btu yet Stefano Pioli’s men are top of the table, with a three point gap over Napoli.

Juve, by contrast pay around an extra €100m on Milan and are in fourth.

But Italian clubs taking on a more prudent approach has been long overdue, with Serie A clubs over extending themselves for decades, even the money wasn’t there.

But excessive spending doesn’t always equate to success. Juventus since 2018 are living proof of that. Frugality is now the name of the game for Serie A’s biggest teams.