Juventus still feeling financial repercussions of signing Ronaldo
Karan Tejwani
- Updated: 10 Sept 2022 16:14 BST
- 3 min read
Italian giants Juventus sold Cristiano Ronaldo in the final days of the 2021 summer transfer window, but the impact of his stay is still being felt by the club after all this time.
Ronaldo joined Juventus in the summer of 2018 as the club hoped to end their Champions League duck – they haven’t won the competition since 1996.
The Portuguese star had a glorious career with Real Madrid, becoming their all-time top scorer and spurring them on to four Champions League wins between 2014 and 2018.
Juventus spent big to get the all-time top scorer of the competition, but in his three-year stay, he wasn’t able to bring the European Cup to Turin and the Bianconeri ended the spell in 2021.
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Manchester United took the chance to sign their former player in the final days of that transfer window, and after a season, Ronaldo wants to leave them too, wishing to play Champions League football.
To sign Ronaldo, Juventus forked out €117 million and offered the player a contract worth €30 million-per-season – a huge outlay for a player they hoped would make them immediately successful.
Although he helped them to five trophies – two of which were league titles – the returns weren’t as much as they would’ve hoped and that impacted them.
According to RMC Sport, the club’s losses amount to €240 to 250 million for the 2021-22 season, which Juventus believed is partially due to the big contract offered to the Portuguese star.
Pick that one out!
Cristiano Ronaldo lasers home his first Champions League goal of the season for Juventus 💥 pic.twitter.com/CQIWrtaOtU— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) November 24, 2020
For the second half of the campaign – between January and June of this year – the losses stand at €132 million, a worrying figure for the Bianconeri.
The accounts will be rated by the Juventus board of directors in September and will be negative for the fifth consecutive year, a stark reality for the record Italian champions.
Juventus had to sell Ronaldo as their grip on the top of Italian football was diminishing, and Manchester United were willing to take on the chance, which hasn’t necessarily worked out as a whole.
Ronaldo scored 24 goals for them last season, but United could only finish sixth in the table and were trophyless, with the player then saying he wished to leave the club in the summer.
