6 reasons Juventus should sell Cristiano Ronaldo this summer
By John Vaccaro
He Is Too Costly For Juventus
As I mentioned on the last slide, the expenses that come with signing and keeping Cristiano Ronaldo have held Juventus back from becoming a well-rounded squad. It’s not just the 120 million euro transfer fee, but the insane contract Juve signed him to when they brought him in. He makes a net total of 33 million euros per season and a gross salary of about 58 million euros. That might not have been an issue for Real Madrid (who actually paid him a little bit more), but it’s a big problem for Juventus.
Ronaldo’s contract is by far the most expensive in Serie A and is 4 times as expensive as the next most expensive Juve contract (Higuain). In fact, there are only two players in the world who make more than him and those two players are Lionel Messi and Neymar. Simply put, Juve doesn’t have the financial freedom that Barcelona and PSG do.
In fact, Juve doesn’t even have the financial freedom of any of the Premier League’s top teams. Serie A doesn’t bring in enough revenue from their television deals to compete with the Premier League or La Liga, even with their deal for American distribution being signed after Ronaldo joined Juve. Juve also doesn’t have oil money backing them like PSG or Manchester City. Even after Ronaldo’s signing, Juventus just doesn’t have the financial power of the rest of Europe’s top clubs.
These expenses that come with Ronaldo will continue to prevent Juve from ever taking the steps to become the perennial Champions League contender they want to be. As long as Ronaldo remains with the club, every move they make to improve will come with consequences.
We already saw those consequences this season when Juve signed Matthijs de Ligt. To offset the cost of that signing Juve had to part with their most promising prospect (Moise Kean), Serie A’s best right back (Joao Cancelo), and a solid young left back who actually outplayed Alex Sandro down the stretch last year (Leonardo Spinazzola). The Moise Kean sale probably won’t impact Juve for a couple of years as they look to develop a squad around Paulo Dybala. All of their options to play alongside him are getting old or leaving and he needs to play with another striker to be at his best. The sale that really hurt Juve this season was the sale of Cancelo. Since he left, the player he was swapped for (Danilo) has been hurt regularly and has been a clear step down when healthy. It has reached the point that Juan Cuadrado is the clear choice to start at right back and, as well as he has played, Juan Cuadrado shouldn’t be starting at right back for a team that wants to compete in the Champions League.
The bigger impact it had this year is that Juve couldn’t add a top option to their midfield. Instead, they signed Adrien Rabiot and Aaron Ramsey on Bosman transfers. At the time they seemed like fine options, even if they weren’t what fans were really hoping for. Instead, Rabiot has barely managed to get himself into the starting lineup this season and Ramsey has continued to struggle with injuries, limiting him to just 5 starts all seasoned forcing Juve to rely on the abysmal Sami Khedira. Without Ronaldo’s massive contract and with the funds from selling him, Juve could finally add the piece they need to make their midfield competitive against the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Manchester City. A sale of Ronaldo would finally give Juve the financial relief to build the squad they need to reach their goal.