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Welcome to issue #094 of Contemporary Football, your inside look at how the game really works behind the scenes.
Monday to Friday, you’ll uncover a new perspective on football business, and sometimes a deeper story that sharpens your thinking and gives you an edge in the beautiful game.
If you need support on your football journey, just write me.
Recently, I went through Juventus’ transfer activity over the past six seasons.
When one of the biggest clubs in Europe spends almost €900M on transfers, receives almost €1bn in recapitalisations, and still struggles to build stability, then something more interesting is happening beneath the surface.
People often think money fixes football problems.
Football does not work like this.
Above a certain level, capital does not solve problems. It amplifies decisions.
Since 2019, Juventus has received almost €1bn in recapitalisations and spent around €875M on transfers.
So this is not a resource problem.
This is allocation.
And football history is full of clubs that confused spending capacity with strategic clarity.
They are not the same thing.
Squads Are Built in Layers
Now let’s look at another point.
Juventus changed leadership several times in recent years.
Andrea Agnelli’s cycle ended. Fabio Paratici left. Then came Arrivabene. Then Scanavino and Giuntoli. Now another reset with Damien Comolli and Matteo Ottolini.
Different executives.
Different visions.
Different ideas of football.
But the squad remained largely connected to previous decisions.
This is where many big clubs quietly lose control.
Because squads are not built in one summer.
They are built in layers.
Every leadership team inherits contracts, wages, player profiles, and strategic choices created by the previous one. And instead of removing old ideas, clubs often add new ones on top.
One coach wants intensity.
Another wants control.
One director values young assets.
Another wants immediate certainty.
The result is not evolution.
It is overlap.
And gradually the squad stops representing one coherent football idea.
The Real Loss Is Optionality
Expensive transfers are not automatically mistakes.
Big clubs must sometimes pay big money.
The problem begins when the same type of bet keeps repeating itself.
Arthur. Vlahovic. Koopmeiners. Douglas Luiz. Nico Gonzalez.
Different moments, but often the same structure:
High transfer cost,
High expectations,
Limited flexibility if things go wrong.
One failed transfer is manageable.
Repeated bets of the same type create something much more dangerous:
An expensive squad without flexibility.
And flexibility is one of the most underrated assets in football.
The visible loss is the money.
The invisible loss is optionality.
Every underperforming signing locks wages, occupies minutes, and reduces room for future decisions.
Over time, the club stops choosing proactively and starts managing restrictions created by previous mistakes.
That is when the model slowly breaks.
Big Clubs Drift Before They Collapse
From the outside, people simplify everything.
Different directors.
Same problems.
But inside football clubs, reality is usually more subtle.
Every leadership group operates with different priorities. Some optimise for immediate performance. Others for financial correction. Others for player trading or long-term asset creation.
None of these objectives is wrong individually.
The problem appears when the club changes direction too frequently.
Because then the squad is built for one objective and judged according to another.
This is how clubs drift.
Not because everybody is incompetent.
But because the definition of success changes too often.
And if I had to reduce all of this to one principle, I would say this:
A football club is not the sum of its transfers.
It is the consistency of the logic behind them.
P.S.: This week I will be attending the best football event of the year. It’s a private event in Solomeo, the private village of Brunello Cucinelli, where we will watch friendly games, and meet with club owners and ceo during informal dinners. Stay tuned because it’s the behind-the-scenes of the behind-the-scenes of the football industry. And I will tell you about it here.
Keep winning,
Federico
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