OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Juventus post €254 million loss for 2021-22 fiscal year

Based solely on their transfer business in which two of the biggest names they signed were on free transfers (albeit rather big salaries), you had to get the feeling that Juventus’ finances weren’t exactly looking like they were during pre-pandemic times.

A couple of months after the likes of Paul Pogba and Angel Di Maria signed, we got the confirmation of just how big much of a loss Juve took during the last fiscal year.

And it’s a big-un.

Juventus announced following Friday’s shareholders’ meeting led by club president Andrea Agnelli that the the 2021-22 fiscal year saw a financial loss of €254.3 million, an increase of over €44 million from the 2020-21 fiscal year. Juve cites that this is largely because of smaller revenue that come from the Serie A broadcast rights — the league began a new broadcasting deal with DAZN and Sky Italia last season — as well as fewer Champions League matches played during the last fiscal year. (Remember, the restart of the UCL after lockdown technically fell in the 2020-21 fiscal year, therefore there were more matches in Europe for Juventus despite being eliminated in the Champions League Round of 16 both seasons.)

Here are the details from the financial report posted on Juventus’ website:

The 2021/2022 financial year closed with a consolidated loss of € 254.3 million, compared to the loss of € 209.9 million in the previous financial year. In detail, the increase in the loss for the year, equal to € 44.4 million, is mainly due to lower income of € 37.3 million; this decrease is due to lower television rights and media revenues for € 64.8 million (mainly due to the lower number of Championship and UEFA Champions League matches compared to the year 2020/2021, which benefited from the deferral of several matches from the 2019/2020 season), partially offset by greater revenue from matches for € 24.5 million (even though still significantly penalised by the pandemic) and by other minor items.

Juventus’ separate financial statements as at 30 June 2022 ended with a € 253.2 million loss (compared to the € 209.5 million loss of the previous year); it will be proposed to the Shareholders’ Meeting to fully cover this loss by using the share premium reserve.

Is this an “Oof maddone!” kind of moment? Yeah, I think so, too.

Just in case you want to do the math, that’s a combined €464 million of losses over the last two fiscal years for Juventus. The pandemic has obviously played a huge role in it since the Allianz Stadium one of the main money makers the club has and it was not back to full capacity until the early weeks of the 2021-22 season.

But, as we know, one of the biggest things impacting this club financially besides the sometimes not great spending on the transfer market has been the lack of deep runs into the Champions League. Bowing out in the round of 16 has been a serious hit simply because Juventus don’t see the financial benefits of getting to the quarterfinals or beyond. As much as they’ve tried to cut down the payroll and become more efficient with their spending on the market, previous mistakes are still very much having a big impact — and that is basically because the product on the field isn’t very good and the stadium isn’t selling out anymore thanks to that (and the high ticket prices).

Good times, folks. Very good times.