Giovanni Carnevali used the afternoon session of the shareholders’ meeting to speak about the transfer market and long-term planning, according to Sportmediaset’s report relayed by Calciomercato.com. His answers are blunt about the limits on what Juventus can do, and they close with a direct statement on Spalletti.
Planning, Young Players and Italian Talent
“Planning is needed, working on young players and on Italianness,” Carnevali said. “We have potential. The project is total, spanning the first team, the Next Gen and the youth sector.”
The message matches the morning’s speech, where he called for “Italianness in this club” and described the Next Gen as a flagship that can give “lifeblood” to the first team. It is also consistent with the January and summer targets in this period, which have leaned towards Italian prospects such as Raimondo, Palmisani, Romano and Leoni.
“Will We Buy the Ballon d’Or? We Will Buy Who We Can”
A question referring to Cristiano Ronaldo, asking whether the club would sign another player of that calibre, drew a deliberately deflating answer. “Will we buy the Ballon d’Or? We will buy who we can.”
He then spoke of his predecessors in measured terms. “I do not criticise those who came before me. Mistakes happen. I promise commitment and seriousness. The fans help us in moments of difficulty, and we must show them respect.”
The UEFA Constraint
Carnevali repeated the point made in the morning session about the limits on ambition. “We know the difficulties. We have a settlement agreement with UEFA that does not allow us to do what we would like, but we will commit to making Juventus a great club.”
It is a direct acknowledgement that the €6m fine and the squad-cost cap under the Settlement Agreement shape the January window, along with the capital gains target of €100m by June 2027 covered earlier in this period.
On Spalletti
The final answer was the one with the widest reach after a week of speculation about the manager’s position. “Spalletti is the Juventus manager and we support him.”
It follows the line from the Continassa meeting last week and Tuttosport’s reporting that the club would not make a managerial change on the strength of a single match. After the 2-0 win over Napoli, the statement carries more weight than it would have a week earlier, though the sidebar on the page already shows a new piece being read widely, headlined “Spalletti goes ‘home’, but with Kolo Muani and Woltemade the Champions League is impossible,” which suggests the debate has not gone away.
