Juventus 's summer transfer window is as intriguing as it is worrying. Igor Tudor has been confirmed in his position, and while the free transfer of Jonathan David was a nice coup on the market, it doesn't mask the club's lack of financial depth. Discussions surrounding Federico Chiesa's future, the possible sale of Dusan Vlahović, and hesitations over potential players reflect a cold reality: Juve doesn't have a free hand. The club is treading a fine line, forced to sell in order to buy, to negotiate every clause, and to bet on players who need to be relaunched or whose contracts are expiring. This isn't just a prudent sporting strategy: it's a symptom of a major shareholder, Exor, redefining its economic priorities. Behind Juve is Exor, the Agnelli-Elkann family's holding company, which is going through one of the most delicate phases in its recent history.
Exor has controlled Juventus for over a century, but it also owns Stellantis, which is currently in the midst of an industrial crisis. With car production in Italy in freefall and the future of several factories unclear, Exor must now manage a costly industrial hemorrhage that is draining resources, at a time when the sale of the Gedi group, controlled by Exor and publisher of the newspapers La Repubblica and La Stampa, is still on the agenda. In this context, every investment is being reconsidered, and Juventus, historically protected, is no longer untouchable. Sports investments must be financially justified, cash advances are being made in dribs and drabs, and the absolute priority is to stabilize Stellantis, which is much more strategic on a group scale. It is in this logic that Juve's transfer window must now be interpreted: no longer as a purely sporting ambition, but as a direct reflection of the economic pressures weighing on its shareholder.
Concern reigns in Turin
The storm rocking Stellantis—production in Italy plummeting by 26.9% in the first half of 2025, barely 222,000 vehicles rolled off the production line, and a forecast of only 440,000 for the year—puts Exor, the Agnelli-Elkann family's holding company, in an existential dilemma: mobilize billions to revive the Mirafiori, Melfi, and Pomigliano factories, or accept an industrial decline with explosive social and political consequences. Where Stellantis has so far represented a steady stream of dividends, it now risks becoming a cash sink, at least until the arrival of the new Fiat 500 hybrid at the end of 2026. This shift is forcing Exor to redefine its financial priorities, and when the "factory" coughs to this extent, the "leisure" that a football club represents immediately becomes an adjustment variable. Now, Juventus depends more than ever on Agnelli-branded oxygen. In March 2025, Exor had already had to advance €15 million to complete the season after the dismissal of Thiago Motta, putting in black and white the possibility of a much more substantial call for funds at the beginning of July, a second check for €15 million came to confirm the club's cash flow emergency.
Even with these infusions, the initial transfer window budget set by Damien Comolli is capped at... €50 million, conditional on significant sales (Dusan Vlahović, Douglas Luiz) to hopefully climb to €150 million. The fresh money that, in the past, arrived almost "automatically" from Turin via Exor is becoming scarce: every euro diverted to the Continassa is now a euro that is not used to cushion Stellantis' colossal losses or to finance the reorganization of its Italian factories. In the short term, this tension will translate into a transfer window of opportunities: loans, players at the end of their contracts, bets on the Next Gen. But the real risk is structural. If Stellantis doesn't get back on track by 2026, Exor will have to arbitrate even more harshly between industry and football. Juve could be forced to sell one or two key executives each summer to remain under the new UEFA rules. Lower budgets also mean less attractiveness for top coaches and premium commercial partnerships, at a time when Inter and AC Milan are benefiting from more aggressive shareholders.
In short, a crisis that some consider "extra-sporting" threatens to redefine the Serie A hierarchy and send the Old Lady back to a "self-sufficiency" strategy reminiscent of 2006-2011—with the hope that this time, the financial recovery won't take five years. If Stellantis's downward spiral persists, portfolio arbitrage at Exor could become brutal: the holding company could choose to protect its "cash cow" Ferrari first—whose market capitalization is breaking record after record, and of which Exor has just sold 4% to collect €3 billion—rather than regularly absorb the losses of a Juve vulnerable to the new UEFA rules. In this scenario, Elkann would no longer rule out the idea of selling a minority stake in the club to bring in outside capital (the cryptocurrency company Tether has already declared itself ready to rise above 5% if the door is opened to it). Although Exor has denied any immediate sale, the mere prospect of a disengagement – a symbolic break after more than a century of alliance between the Agnelli family and Juventus – would be experienced as an earthquake in Italian football, signifying the end of a hereditary patronage that has shaped the identity and success of the Old Lady since 1923.
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