Juventus announce Ronaldo transfer decision

Carlo Garganese

• Updated: 19 May 2021 14:54 BST
• 4 min read

Juventus managing director Fabio Paratici insists that both Cristiano Ronaldo and Andrea Pirlo will stay at the club next season despite yet another humiliation on Sunday.

The 2020/21 campaign is fast turning into a disaster for the Bianconeri and Sunday’s shock 1-0 home loss to relegation-threatened Benevento all but ended Juve’s title hopes.

Juventus now find themselves 10 points behind runaway leaders Inter, while they are already out of the Champions League after being eliminated by Porto in the last 16.

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Sunday’s defeat also means that Juve face a battle even to finish in the top four, a situation that has resulted in calls for coach Pirlo to be sacked and for Ronaldo to be sold in the summer.

But Paratici says that Juventus have decided to keep both their coach and star player.

“We’ve decided to keep Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s the best player in the world and we are holding on tight,” the director stated at full time.

“We have a project that we started from last season, one game will not change our views or our strategy. This line continues and we are very happy with what we’ve done, so we’ll continue working to improve.”

Ronaldo: Juventus statistics in 2020/21

Paratici was asked why previous coaches Max Allegri and Maurizio Sarri were sacked despite winning the Scudetto, while Pirlo will be retained after falling well short in Italy and abroad.

“We were not unsatisfied with the previous coaches, but there were different reasons why we decided to change,” he said.

“Just as a defeat won’t change the project of a club, a victory won’t either. Once an approach has been decided on, we see it through.

“I don’t believe the word ‘transitional’ exists at Juventus. We play every game aiming to win, some go better than others, but transition isn’t an issue here. Every year is important, even when it doesn’t necessarily have the same results as in the past.

“If we are just talking about results, there are clubs who had seven, eight or 10 years of transition in which they didn’t win anything and didn’t really lay down any foundations either.

“People might not have realised because we kept winning, but we have already made numerous changes over the years, reduced the age of the squad several times to build future success.

“I can tell you seven or eight times we were told an era has ended, for example the defeat at Galatasaray, Conte’s departure, the Berlin Champions League Final, when we were 10 points off the lead at the start of last season, when we replaced Allegri with Sarri, etc, etc and yet we continued to win.

“When you are rebuilding, it can happen that you don’t also manage to win everything at the same time, but it’s part of the process.”

Juventus are next in action after the international break in the Turin derby against Torino.