Teun Koopmeiners has been on Juventus’s list of players available for sale since the very first day of the summer transfer window. But as August arrives and a permanent departure remains stubbornly out of reach, the club are reconsidering their approach — and a new formula is emerging that could break the deadlock and, crucially, create the squad space required to finally sign Franck Kessié.
Why a Permanent Sale Has Proved Impossible
The obstacle to moving Koopmeiners permanently has always been financial. The Dutch midfielder carries a book value of approximately €29 million on Juventus’s balance sheet and earns gross wages of €5.7 million per year on a contract running until June 2029. For a player who has failed to consistently deliver the level expected since his €59 million arrival from Atalanta, finding a club willing to meet the minimum fee required to avoid a loss — whilst also absorbing his significant wage commitment — has proved extremely difficult.
Galatasaray made an approach earlier in the summer but were firmly rebuffed by Koopmeiners himself, who has no interest in the Turkish league. No Premier League or major European club has yet made a concrete move. The market, for a player of his cost and recent form, has simply not materialised at the price Juventus need.
The New Idea: A Loan That Costs Less and Resolves More
Rather than continuing to search fruitlessly for a permanent buyer, Juventus are now exploring the possibility of a loan. A temporary arrangement — ideally a loan with an obligation to purchase, triggered by either the player reaching a specific number of appearances or the buying club achieving certain sporting targets — would remove Koopmeiners’s wages from the immediate balance sheet whilst keeping the door open to a future permanent sale.
On the 2026-27 accounts, the impact of a loan versus a permanent sale is different but meaningful. A loan removes the wage burden — the most significant drain on the club’s squad cost framework — without generating the capital gain that a sale would produce. In the context of the UEFA Settlement Agreement, however, reducing annual squad costs is precisely what Juventus need most urgently in the short term.
How This Connects to Kessié
The direct link between Koopmeiners’s exit and Kessié’s arrival is not merely positional — it is financial. Under the squad cost framework imposed by the Settlement Agreement, Juventus cannot add a significant new wage commitment to the books without reducing an existing one. Koopmeiners’s contract, at €5.7 million gross per year, is one of the largest and least justified salary commitments in the squad. Removing it through a loan — even without the immediate capital gain of a sale — would provide the room needed to bring in Kessié on a contract that, at around €5 million net per season, sits just within Juventus’s parameters if an equivalent outgoing is confirmed.
The Sequencing That Carnevali and Massara Are Working Through
The picture that is emerging from the Continassa in the first days of the Asian tour is one of careful, methodical prioritisation. Suzuki on loan from PSG is the goalkeeping priority. Lucumí from Bologna, potentially with Miretti and Cabal as makeweights, is the defensive priority. And in midfield, a Koopmeiners loan — followed by Kessié — is the formula Carnevali and Massara are now actively preparing to execute. Each piece depends on the ones before it. Each exit enables an entrance. The Sassuolo method, in its most elaborate and interconnected expression, is being applied across the entire squad simultaneously.
