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Juventus FC looking for capital to navigate COVID losses

Juventus is reportedly looking to offset losses due to COVID by raising capital in the range of €300-400 million.

Football clubs in Europe are finding ways to compensate for losses caused by COVID 19 in the last 18 months. According to Reuters, Juventus FC is approaching banks for raising capital that can help them to navigate through losses.  The Turin-based club is looking to get capital in the range of €300-400 million euros.

This report confirms that Juventus had reached out to BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, Mediobanca, and UniCredit. Previously, UniCredit had arranged the club’s former capital raise in 2019. The club is looking to strengthen its balance sheet and is looking at several options before presenting it to the board.

The reason behind establishing contact with lenders involved gauging a response about the capital increase, but no decision has been made yet and will be only made after receiving complete feedback on the issue. Like all football clubs across Europe, The Old Lady suffered a similar fate due to Covid -19 as Matchday revenue went down to a near-zero and marketing and merchandise opportunities shrunk for most of the year.

Controlled by the Agnelli family, Juventus said in February it expected to end the 2020/2021 financial year in the red after recording a loss of €113 million euros in the first half of the year. This is nearly double the losses Juventus made in the first half of the 2019/20 financial year. Juventus will have to sell players this summer to ease the financial burden. The future of Cristiano Ronaldo could be away from Turin since he currently earns 31 million net per year. Juventus could do with getting rid of such wages off the bill this summer along with other stars such as Aaron Ramsey.

Other clubs like Barcelona have also tried to raise capital by refinancing loans as they brace for major losses at the end of the fiscal year. Barcelona and Inter Milan had recently acquired capital to offset losses.

Juventus was among 12 of Europe’s leading soccer clubs from England, Italy, and Spain that announced a breakaway European Super League in April. The project collapsed in less than 48 hours after it was launched following an outcry by fans, governments, players, and managers. If the Super League had gone ahead, then Juventus would have received a much-needed injection of cash since founder clubs were set to get significant money. JP Morgan was going to invest heavily in this project and give capital of over $400 million to founder clubs. Juventus, Real Madrid, and Barcelona are yet to give up on the idea of the Super League.

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