Juventus face many challenges

Juventus have published their accounts for the 2022/23 season, which was disappointing for a number of reasons.  After the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) brought charges against Juventus for financial irregularities, the club’s board of directors resigned, including chairman Andrea Agnelli, vice-chairman Pavel Nedved and chief executive Maurizio Arrivabene.

The club has actually had to deal with two separate legal cases: the first one involved over-stated capital gains via inflated player trading values, while there was also another one with allegations of false accounting involving salary “manoeuvres”.

To add to Juve’s woes, their former star player, Cristiano Ronaldo, has recently taken legal action against the club over €19.5m unpaid wages (linked to the salary manoeuvres case).

And to prove that it never rains, but it pours, Paul Pogba has failed a drugs test, so his Juve career is in the balance, though from a purely financial perspective this could give the club the opportunity to terminate the misfiring French midfielder’s contract with a big salary saving.

Still a huge pre-tax loss

There are two ways of looking at Juventus’ 2022/23 financial results: on the one hand, there has been a substantial reduction in the deficit; on the other hand, the pre-tax loss was still huge at €117m and also one of the largest in Italy.

Juventus’ 2022/23 accounts cover a season when they finished 7th in Serie A (following the points deduction) and reached the semi-finals of the Coppa Italia. In Europe, they were eliminated at the group stage of the Champions League, dropping down to the Europa League, where they got to the semi-finals.

Their pre-tax loss more than halved from €237m to €117m (€124m after tax), as revenue rose €46m (11%) from €414m to €460m, partly due there being no more COVID impact, while profit on player sales increased €19m (67%) from €28m to €47m.

The club noted that the loss would have been further reduced by around €23m without the adverse impact on revenue and costs of the various legal issues, both Italian and international.

Their losses over the three seasons up to 2022 were also among the highest in Europe with their €544m only surpassed by Barcelona €840m and PSG €725m.  The last time that Juventus posted a profit was back in 2016/17, but in the six years since then they have lost a horrific €739m (after tax).

The importance of player trading

Juventus’ profit from player sales in 2022/23 rose €19m (67%)from €28m to €47m, which was a decent result, but less than half of the gains made the previous season by Fiorentina €113m (Vlahovic to Juventus) and Inter €105m (Lukaku to Chelsea and Hakimi to PSG).

The importance of player trading to the Juventus business model is clearly illustrated by the steep reduction in profits in the last three years, when they only averaged €35m, which was almost €100m less than the €132m in the preceding 4-year period.  That said, Juventus had still made the most money in Italy from player sales up to 2022 with €446m, which was nearly €200m more than Napoli €262m and Inter €256m, followed by Fiorentina €231m and Atalanta €226m.  The problem is that this excellent performance is very largely driven by deals from a few years ago. As we have seen, the trend is most certainly not Juve’s friend in this case.

Excluding player sales, Juventus revenue has dropped €34m (7%) in the past four years from the €494m peak in 2018/19 to €460m, though this is still the club’s second highest ever. The reduction has been driven by broadcasting and match day, due to worse performance in Europe, partly offset by commercial growth.

The importance of Europe

It is imperative that Juventus qualify for the Champions League to boost broadcasting income, as Serie A TV rights are so low at €1.1 bln, especially after the most recent deal fell 14% (domestic down 5%, international 40%).  As a comparison, the club that finished last in the Premier League in 2021/22 (Norwich City) received €114m TV money, which was nearly 50% more than the Italian champions.

Juventus earned €64m from UEFA competitions last season, which was the lowest of the four Italian Champions League representatives, as they were eliminated at the group stage. Inter’s achievement in reaching the final was worth €100m, while semi-finalists Milan received €85m and quarter-finalists Napoli got €77m.

Juventus’ wage bill reduced by €55m (16%) from €337m to €282m, as part of what the club described as “incisive structural cost rationalisation actions”. These included offloading a number of players, some of them on loan, while performance-related bonuses were obviously lower. It should further fall this season, as some big earners left the club.

Juventus have been very reliant on capital injections from their owners, announcing another €200m increase this season. This is the third time that the club has had to go to the shareholders for cash recently after €300m in 2019/20 and €400m in 2021/22, which means a total of €900m in just five years (less fees).

Juventus need to return to their former levels, as success on the pitch will drive revenue growth. As a minimum, they need to finish in one of the top four places this season, thus qualifying for the lucrative Champions League.