Juventus reports €210 million in losses for 2020-21 fiscal year

We knew this wasn’t going to be a pretty number. We knew that, in part, because Juventus had an absolutely massive amount of capital put into the club to cover the losses from the 2020-21 fiscal year. You don’t just randomly inject €400 million in capital into your club and make it clear that it’s not because you’re about to go crazy on the transfer market.

Juventus didn’t go crazy on the transfer market after its massive capital increase this summer.

Instead, it was proposed for one simple reason: The financial report for the 2020-21 fiscal year wasn’t going to be pretty. And on Friday, we got that financial report.

Juventus’ financial records from the last financial year have been released, and the club officially announced that they suffered an extraordinary €210 million in losses. The biggest culprit in all of this is the easiest thing you’ll ever have to figure out — the pandemic and the fact that Juventus, outside of a couple of instances, played the entire 2020-21 with no fans in the stands and the cashcow that is Allianz Stadium was not able to bring in the kind of revenue that it had been doing in previous seasons.

This financial draft put together by president Andrea Agnelli will be formally presented at a shareholders’ meeting next month for approval.

Juventus’ incredibly detailed 15-page report stated the following:

The 2020/2021 financial year was significantly affected - as were all companies in the sector — by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent restrictive measures imposed by the Authorities. The pandemic has significantly affected - directly and indirectly — revenues from ticket sale, revenues from the sale of products and licences and revenues from players’ registration rights, with a consequent inevitable negative impact both of economic and financial nature on the result for the period and on shareholders’ equity, and of financial nature on the cash-flow and debt. These negative effects were partially offset by higher revenues from television and radio rights, due to the postponement from the previous year of some national and international competition matches, due to the pandemic.

It was pretty easy to figure out that this number was going to be a big one after a smaller yet still very big one was announced at the midway point of the 2020-21 fiscal year, with nearly €114 million in losses being reported. The hope at that time was that fans would slowly work their way back into stadiums for the second half of the 2020-21 season. That, of course, didn’t happen, and Juventus was forced to keep Allianz Stadium closed up until recently.

But as we’ve said, the pandemic may be a huge factor in these losses, but it’s not the only reason in why Juve has posted such a massive amount of losses for the recently completed fiscal year.

Within the financial report, Juventus made a statement regarding the now-defunct Super League project that they are still a part of with Real Madrid and Barcelona. It says: “As at today, it is not possible to predict with certainty the outcome and future development of the Super League project, of the legitimacy of which Juventus remains confident.”

The legal case in which Juve, Real Madrid and Barca are challenging UEFA’s monopoly control of competitions is currently with the European Court of Justice.