On the day Juventus’s shareholders meet to vote on the capital increase, Tuttosport’s Paolo Pirisi has interviewed Fabrizio Bava, a Turin-born economics professor and lifelong Juventus supporter. Bava has just published a novel, “Fuori dal Gioco” (“Out of the Game”), a coming-of-age story that uses twenty-six years of personal and sporting history, with the club as its common thread, to explore the bond between a fan and his team. Football economics runs through it too, with balance sheets used to explain what lies behind professional football. On the day of the meeting, he turns that expertise to the club’s present finances.
The €66m Loss: “The Absence From the Champions League Is the Real Worry”
Pirisi starts with the numbers. Juventus closed the 2025/26 accounts with a loss of €66 million, worse than the €58.1 million of the previous year. How worrying is that?
Bava’s answer moves the focus away from the headline figure. “The fact that Juventus are not in the Champions League, looking at the near future, is the most worrying aspect, far more than the slight worsening of the accounts between 2025 and 2026.”
He then identifies positives. “In the Covid years the club had exceeded €300 million in costs, touching €200 million in amortisation. Now we are at €335 million between costs and amortisation. But back then the virtuous part of the balance sheet rested on the much-criticised capital gains. The contraction in costs continues to be recorded, and it is encouraging, but next year the absence from the Champions League will weigh.”
The implication is a shift in how the club’s finances should be read. Cost control is working, and the improvement no longer depends on the player-trading profits that attracted controversy in the past. But the revenue side is the exposure, and it depends on results.
What the Headline Says: €250 Million and Yıldız
The title of the interview carries Bava’s two most notable claims. The first is that “the fallout depends on results on the pitch,” which echoes Vaciago’s and Carnevali’s emphasis that sporting performance, not boardroom restructuring, is the determining variable. The second is that €250 million is needed so that Yıldız does not have to be sold, with the subtitle adding that half of the capital increase will be needed by June.
The €250 million matches the size of the capital increase before the shareholders today. Bava’s message is that the sum is not a cushion but a necessity, and that without it the club’s best asset, a player earlier reported to be worth around €100 million and currently injured, could be forced onto the market. It places the capital increase, the January window and the Champions League qualification race in a single chain, which is why the Napoli win, and the results that follow it, matter beyond the table.
