The headline above feels all too predictable considering what we all followed along with last summer.
Juventus want to sign Randal Kolo Muani for a certain price during a summer in which they are hamstrung by no Champions League football come the fall. Paris Saint-Germain, who isn’t exactly in a position of having leverage considering what the market for the French striker has been the last two summers, still want to try and make a profit on the books because they paid so much for Kolo Muani back
in 2023.
That leads to a standoff of sorts between the two sides who have a whole lot of history talking about this one player. Or, in this case, one of Italy’s big transfer reports saying things are, effectively, “on hold.”
According to Sky Sport Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio on Tuesday, that is exactly the case when it comes to Juventus’ second straight summer of trying to bring Kolo Muani back to Turin. Things are on hold — and it is because PSG’s price continues to be one that Juventus don’t want to pay. Last summer it was Damien Comolli taking a hard line and not giving into the European champions’ demands. Now, it’s new CEO Giovanni Carnevali who isn’t exactly a fan of what PSG is demanding that Juve pay to try and secure Kolo Muani’s signature with a formula that Di Marzio previously reported as a season-long loan deal with an obligation to buy next summer.
While Di Marzio didn’t include in his report what that price demand from PSG may be, TuttoJuve’s Mirko Di Natale said earlier this month that it could be as much as €35 million.
And, here we are again, with the two sides of the negotiations having very different opinions of what this player should cost. One could just say this is classic negotiations, others can say this is Juventus’ new CEO doing a good job of standing to his ground when negotiating with a PSG club that clearly is trying to take advantage of his need to bring a player they want back this summer.
So where does it all go?
At this point, who really knows.
By all accounts, Kolo Muani wants to still come back to Juventus, and manager Luciano Spalletti wants a striker like him on the roster for next season. (Hell, Spalletti wanted Kolo Muani on the team back in January when the club was on the hunt to try and get a striker in but pretty much failed in every aspect of that.)
We will see where this goes. It’s not even the end of June yet, and this seems like a situation where there will be more updates to come. There’s more to this — especially with the history that these negotiations over multiple sporting chiefs has involved.
