According to Juve's official news, Vlahović's transfer fee is 70 million euros, with a future floating clause of 10 million and various other additional fees of 11.6 million. As a result, the Juve new No. 7 became the first and third most expensive winter window transfer in Serie A and third in history. However, why does the old woman who lost 210 million euros in the latest financial report still make a big move?
There is a Serbian proverb: Humble, because you are made of dust; noble, because you are made of stars.
Humble and noble, the noble character of the Serbian perception is epitomized in a 22-year-old boy. Shy and hardworking in private, heroic and cold on the pitch, this was the first impression Dushan Vlahović left on Serie A fans. Just over a year ago, he was a big boy with a pox-faced face and reading the fairy tale "The Little Prince". On January 28, 2022, on Vlahović's birthday, he joined Juventus from Florence for an initial fee of 70 million euros, a tall, handsome young man who will become the new "little prince" of Turin in the future.
Circulating on the Internet is a video of Vlahović about 10 years old to participate in a small game, the video in which he freely shows a variety of difficult football skills, dribbling, picking the ball, vigorously pumping, originally taller than other children Vlahović is like an adult bullying elementary school students, it can be said that Vlahovich has been a star who stands out from the crowd and the stars are like the moon since he was a child.
It was also at that age that Vlahović joined the OFK club in his hometown of Belgrade. Perhaps lesser people know that Vlahović's football initiation coach is currently coaching in China – Serbian Milan Rustici, who has just helped Meizhou Hakka club complete the upgrade to the Chinese Super League miracle. In order to gain a deeper understanding of Vlahović, I also conducted an interview with Rustic.
From the age of 11 to 16, Richic accompanied Vlahović through one of the most important periods of the cognitive phase of football for a young player, "My work model is that I will teach Vlahović privately, because it is very important for talented players. In his opinion, Vlahovich not only has a strong body, but also has "strong leadership.". "In less than a month, I realized he was a natural leader and handed him the captain's armband. During that period, together we won all the honours of the Serbian youth league", says Rustici proudly.
Similar to many geniuses who cash in on their talents, Vlahović is also very close to his family, Andristić said: "Vlahović comes from a reliable, healthy ordinary family, which is the first condition for a child's success in the world of football. "In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning to rage in Italy, Vlahović unfortunately became one of the first Serie A players to be recruited, and he developed some symptoms, and after his condition stabilized, he also recorded a video to answer many fans' concerns. When asked about the first thing to do after ending quarantine, he said firmly: "The first thing is definitely to be reunited with my family and hug my parents and sister." ”
On Friday, Rustic also duly updated his social media status to congratulate Vlahović, along with photos of them working together on the training ground (above). Ristich sent birthday wishes to Vlahović but did not congratulate him on joining Juve, because Ristich knew, "The real strength of Vlahović is his willpower, and whatever he thinks, he will eventually try to make it happen." Richić concluded. Perhaps competing for the Serie A Golden Boot, helping Serbia qualify for the World Cup, and joining Juventus are just a small idea in Vlahović's mind, and there will be bigger goals waiting for him to achieve in the future.
Vlahović mentioned more than once that his idol is Ibrahimovic because of his pedigree and because of the way he plays. Growing up thereafter, the equally tall Vlahović struggled not to be influenced by Ibrahimovic's technical characteristics, and in his teenage years, he also preferred dribbling and difficult shots. However, Ristich said: "Vlahovic always listened very carefully to the coach, trained hard, he is still very young, there is still a lot of room for improvement, such as he is trying to strengthen his head skills, which he practiced less during his youth. ”
Vlahović's growth trajectory is also very similar to Ibrahimovic's, leaving OfK Belgrade, Vlahović entered the first team of Partisan Belgrade as the youngest player in the club's history, and although he won the league title and cup there, he will not stop there. As we all know, Partisans and Ajax are well-known youth clubs in Europe, and Vlahović and Ibrahimovic eventually joined Juventus from the genius processing plant, but Vlahović had one more transit.
In the summer of 2017, Vlahović was taken to Purple Lily by former sporting director Corvino, and it took Florence a year to officially register him because he was a minor at the time and did not have an EU passport. In the 2018-19 season, Vlahović scored 11 goals in 13 games in the youth league and was named the top scorer of the Youth Italia Cup with 6 goals, helping the team win the trophy of this tournament. In the same year, at the age of 18, he became the first post-00 in The history of Florence to participate in Serie A.
The following season, Vlahović scored his Debut Serie A goal for Fiorentina and scored twice against Cagliari and Sampdoria. Especially in the away game of Samp, in the face of boos and insults from home fans, Vlahovic made a two-handed celebration after scoring, and "rejecting noise" was his early signature celebration, usually with fans raising their middle fingers in the background. At a young age, he had learned to respond with Ibrahimovic with goals. Interestingly, in the same game, Federico Chiesa, who was still playing for Fiorentina at the time, also scored two goals, and perhaps it was after watching that game that juve scouts came up with the idea of packing the two talents of the purple lily in the future to form Juventus' strong forward.
The 2020-21 season that really made Vlahović a blockbuster did not start well. It's hard to imagine that under head coach Yakini, Vlahović was playing as a substitute for Cuamme until he met another nobleman in his career: Prandelli. Rue Prandelli took up his post from the 8th round of the league and established Vlahovic as the main player in The First Game. The Serbian striker later revealed: "Coach Prandelli called me to the office when he came and said, 'You have seven or eight chances to prove yourself, I'll give it all to you', I failed to score in several games, so he asked me to play a penalty, let me break the goal drought, he pulled me out of the mire. Later, Prandelli left the team for personal reasons, and Vlahović also sincerely sent his blessings and thanks.
The story that followed was familiar to everyone, with Vlahović bursting out in the mid-to-late stages, scoring 20 goals in 26 serie a serie a dozen from the 12th round of that penalty. At the end of 2021, Vlahovic's goal was accompanied by a new record, and finally the number of goals for the whole year stopped at 33, tied with C Ronaldo to become the third place in the league goals list in the natural year.
So far this season, Juventus' forward efficiency has been criticized. After 23 rounds, the Bianconeri can only rank 11th in terms of goals, and the three strikers of Dybala, Morata and Keane have not scored as many goals as Vlahović alone (15 to 17), and if they continue to deepen the league with such efficiency, they may not win the Champions League. This situation also prompted Juve to come up with a "reserve" of 400 million yuan in capital increase, smash Vlahović at a high price, and offer a high salary of 7 million euros, making the Serbian jump into the ranks of the highest-paid players in Serie A.
Before Fiorentina's 4–3 win over Milan last November, cameras captured Vlahović looking longingly at his idol Ibrasimovic in the players' tunnel, just as Ibrahimovic was following in Ibrahimovic's footsteps 15 years ago, just as Ibrahimovic was following in Ibrahimovic's footsteps and becoming an icon for more Serbian children.
Investing 150 million yuan for Vlahović, where did Juve get so much money?
The dust settled, and one of the heaviest deals in the winter window of Serie A this year was announced on Vlahović's birthday. Compared with the procrastination style shown in the Locatelli transaction in the summer, this time The Juve management can be described as fierce, from the first official offer on January 25 to the official announcement on January 28, the entire transaction lasted only 72 hours.
The main reason is that Juventus, as a buyer, is willing to spend a lot of money to meet the conditions of the player and the original club; Fiorentina, as a seller, is worried that Vlahovic, whose contract will expire in a year and a half, will be released as long as the bid meets psychological expectations; and the player side has long been fond of Juve, and even rejected an offer from the Premier League in order to stay in Serie A.
This also indirectly contributed to the strange scene of negotiating contract details with the players after the transfer was "off the tree", because the Italian media early decided that the goal of the three parties was to complete the transaction as soon as possible. The players were also very contentious, turning from yang to yin before the transfer window was about to close (Vlahović was infected with the new crown virus for the second time, but Fiorentina did not publish his name), and successfully completed the signing under the joint "escort" of the local health bureaus of Florence and Turin.
Since Juventus is a public company, compared to other clubs, they will include many details of the transaction in each transfer announcement, many of which are clear at a glance, but there are still some questions that fans care about that need to be answered:
Vlahović's agent, Dalko Ristich, is also Serbian, and the only one of his company's clients is Vlahović, so he has always hoped to rely on the deal to achieve "overnight wealth", and his insistence on commissions in contract negotiations has become the consensus of the industry.
In the original text of Juventus's announcement, it was written: "The total price of the additional payment is 11.6 million euros", and the author asked well-known reporters such as Romeo Agresti for verification, which is actually the agent's commission. And the words in the announcement are basically the same as those in the announcement when C Ronaldo transferred from Real Madrid to Juventus that year, but the "total price" has been added, and it is possible that this money is not sent to Ristić alone. In any case, Juve's spending for the brokerage team in Vlahović's trade was only slightly less than the 12 million euros that Ronaldo paid for Mendes when he transferred, which was already the price after the "greedy" broker discounted Juve.
According to FIFA regulations, each authorized transfer is required to pay a development fee to the club where the player is between the ages of 12 and 23 to compensate for the contributions made by the youth club. Usually this expenditure is counted on the seller's head, after all, it is the seller who takes the money, they are obliged to bear the cost, such as Lukaku's return from Inter Milan to Chelsea, and the training fee is paid by Inter.
But it can also be negotiated to be paid by the buyer, such as the case of C Ronaldo joining Juve, and the club training fee of the century transfer was paid by the buyer. Fiorentina played a little clever this time, seeing that Juve's wealth would not care about these details once he decided to pay the bill. This is also explained in the announcement, and in the end, according to the proportion, Juve paid about 3.5 million euros more.
Just before Juventus's official offer, Fiorentina general manager Barone clearly conveyed the meaning of chairman Comiso in an interview with the media: do not accept vouchers, do not accept multi-year installments. In one sentence, it can be summed up: ask for cash. Juventus also readily agreed without hesitation. But in this announcement, it is clearly written: "3 years in installments", is it that Juve did not abide by the agreement of Florence, or did Florence compromise?
In fact, Fiorentina's purpose is only to earn more cash, and does not accept the method of renting first and buying later, to ensure that the club gets greater protection in this transaction. Generally, in transfers involving such a significant amount, installment payments are a very normal operation, and the seller will also settle in the financial year in the financial report. Just like Inter Milan won Lukaku for 75 million euros in 2019, it was also paid in many years, when fans praised Marotta's bargaining ability, which was actually just the "basic exercise" of these managers.
Combining the above points, Juventus has spent more than 150 million euros on the Vlahović transaction and made advances. This includes a fixed transfer fee of €70 million, a floating bonus of €10 million (including conditions that are easier to achieve and less attainable), a training fee of €3.5 million, a broker's commission of €11.6 million, and Vlahović's annual salary for 4 and a half years (according to the procedure, advances are required).
According to the media disclosure (Juve did not announce the specific annual salary of the player in the announcement), Vlahović's annual salary after tax is 7 million euros, the player does not meet the conditions for enjoying the new tax law, according to the calculation of football and finance network, Juve's annual pre-tax expenditure is about 12.95 million euros, the contract period is 4 and a half years, so the total salary expenditure is 58.27 million euros.
As we all know, while the latest year's earnings report showed Juventus losing 210 million euros, exor, the group company behind the club, has just recently injected 400 million euros. "Milan Sports Newspaper" calculated an account, of which 75 million is an advance expense, 5 million is a miscellaneous expenditure, and the remaining 320 million is the real liquidity injected into the club. In addition, 175 million of the 320 million is to fill the gap in the next 12 months, the remaining 175 million is used to support the operating expenses of 2019 to 2024, and nearly half of them also have to pay off bank loans and so on, so in the end only 80 million to 85 million euros can be used to invest in the transfer fund pool, but don't forget that Juve also has to deal with the buyout fees of Chiesa and Lokatelli in the summer.
So it seems that Juve does not have much money to buy Vlahović, in fact, the algorithm of the rice body is not necessarily accurate, everyone's worries are superfluous, although the consortium behind Juve is not the most like to throw, but as long as it is decided to invest in the club's decision-making, it will definitely come up with a sufficient budget. Just like 90 million euros to buy Higuain and 100 million euros to smash C Ronaldo, although the club's account does not have so much cash, it is more than enough to buy a Vlahović when the group owner speaks.
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