Report: Juve’s soon-to-be free agents will have to take a paycut if they want to stay

There are many things that Juventus need to see happen if they want to try and get themselves on better financial standing after two years of pandemic-impacted bottom lines. It hasn’t been easy with stadiums closed or attendance capacities severally limited as the latest COVID-19 variant has ripped through all of Europe and caused stricter restrictions to go back into place.

That means Juve’s front office, most notably CEO Maurizio Arrivabene, are trying to think of multiple ways to try and get things they can control — like the club’s wage bill — a little bit more under control as compared to where it has been over the last few years.

According to Friday’s front page of Tuttosport, Arrivabene has one concrete goal when it comes to potentially bringing back any number of the six of Juventus’ soon-to-be free agents — Paulo Dybala, Juan Cuadrado, Federico Bernardeschi, Mattia De Sciglio, Mattia Perin and Carlo Pinsoglio. It involves, as you might expect, the next contract that they will potentially sign at Juventus, but there’s a catch to it: Arrivabene wants each player to take a paycut of 15 percent on their next contract.

That would mean that negotiations for the new contracts will, if true, take quite the interesting twist considering that it’s been well-established that Dybala and his agent Jorge Antun had a verbal agreement for a pay raise recently taken off the table as well as Cuadrado also reportedly close to being in agreement on a new deal.

Arrivabene, in his first year at Juventus, has recently said that the club will resume talks with Dybala and others next month, a sign that there isn’t necessarily a rush to get things done in relatively short order.

But with the report being what it is, this is what Tuttosport forecasts the salary cuts with the 15 percent figure in mind, in gross terms, would be:

• Dybala: €13.5 million to €11.4 million.
• Cuadrado: €9.2 million €7.8 million.
• Bernardeschi: €7.4 million to €6.2 million.
• De Sciglio: €5.5 million to €4.6 million.
• Perin: €4.2 million to €3.5 million
• Pinsoglio: €0.5 million to €0.4 million

Now, this obviously would bring up some challenges — especially in the Dybala case seeing as he was reportedly ensured that the nice little raise was coming his way with the new contract. Rumors have been there about Juve wanting to bring Bernardeschi back on a lesser salary, and you would expect the same for Cuadrado considering that he’s getting up there in age and won’t be signing a long-term like Dybala is seeking.

The biggest thing, if this report holds true, is that it should tell you a lot about Juventus’ financial situation. Not only is it good now, but the desire to bring down the size of the payroll that has been the highest in Serie A for years now is very much apparent.

Arrivabene’s arrival at Juventus has always been reasoned with his ability on the business side of things as compared to somebody like Federico Cherubini and the sporting aspect with roster construction. And you gotta believe that getting the payroll in order and certainly less bloated like it has been the last few years — yes, even after Cristiano Ronaldo’s massive contract is off the books — has been his first big-time task at Juve.

We’ll see where it goes. But it definitely is something to keep track of over the next few months as some of these contract extension talks get going again.