Breaking the bank
World Soccer - November 1999
Del Piero: �90,000 a match
Everybody is happy about Del Piero's new contract, but I'd say that the person most happy about it is Del Piero himself."
On the day last June that striker Alessandro Del Piero signed a new contract with Juventus, it was left to the club's honorary president and No. 1 fan, Gianni Agnelli, to supply the appropriate summary.
The new deal is indeed one to make Del Piero happy, being worth �3.6m a year - after tax. Given that he was already earning an estimated �3.3m via a variety of advertising, endorsement and other commercial contract, it was hardly surprising that Italian journalists immediately wanted to know how he felt about being the "world's highest paid footballer".
Del Piero replied: "I don't know if I am the highest paid. It's not my habit to go looking into the pockets of others to see how much they earn. Anyway, every contract expresses a particular moment and context. Who knows? Perhaps, in a few years, contracts like mine will be much more common."
Who knows, indeed? One thing is certain, however, and it is that the club's determination to hold on to Del Piero was made doubly manifest not only by the size of the contract offered but also by the fact that the new deal was signed at the end of nine months of protracted negotiation, when Del Piero had been entirely absent from football because of a knee ligament injury sustained in a 2-2 Serie A draw with Udinese in November 1998.
Juventus, too, are a club with a reputation for off-loading big names. The list of players sold by the 'Old Lady' in recent seasons reads like a Who's Who of top international soccer, including such as Christian Vieri, Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Baggio, Alen Boksic and Fabrizio Ravanelli, to name but the most obvious.
A number of factors obviously influenced the Juventus decision to make Del Piero the exception to the above 'off-loading' rule. For one, he is only 24 years old (25 on November 9) and can thus reasonably be expected to have the five or six best seasons of his career sitll in front of him.
For a second, Del Piero is nothing less than an Italian sporting icon. A failure to come to terms with him would have provoked outrage from the Juventus fans, while making a valuable, charismatic player available to championship rivals.
Not surprisingly, Del Piero looked particularly relieved when the white smoke finally emerged on June 29 from a conclave that had involved no fewer than 12 people at the negotiating table - Umberto Agnelli, Antonio Giraudo, Roberto Bettega, Luciano Moggi and Romy Gay for Juventus, Del Piero, his agents Claudio Pasqualin and Andrea D'Amico, and two other lawyers per party.
Del Piero's new contract runs from July 1, 1999, to June 30, 2004, reportedly guaranteeing the player a total of �3.6m a year. If he plays 40 matches this season, he will earn �90,000 per game.
Given Del Piero's 'standard bearer' status within Italian soccer, Juventus were at first tempted to buy out rights to his advertising/endorsement image.
Del Piero, however, already had a series of advertising and endorsement contract; the most important are with Coca-Cola, Adidas, Walt Disney, spectacles manufacturers Luxottica, and the Italian Educational Institute, Cepu.
In the end, Juventus and Del Piero came to a joint advertising deal which guarantees the club the 'use' of Del Piero for club-related promotional purposes throughout the period of his contract while allowing for Del Piero's agents, APM (Avvocato Pasqualin Management) to continue marketing their 'product' as best they see fit.
Juventus, however, have reserved the right to 'oversee' any new promotional contract signed by Del Piero, reserving the right to make an alternative offer of similar economic dimensions and a similar product.
Juventus have also reserved the right to present new advertising/business proposals to Del Piero. If his backers accept the Juve-offered deals, then the club will take a 20 per cent cut of the contract in question. This particular clause looks like a good deal for the club, because the average commission taken by APM on Del Piero's commercial deals is estimated to be around six per cent.
Final thoughts on the new Del Piero contract come from the player himself who, when asked yet again how it felt to be so rich, replied: "Money is important because it helps you to live better, but there are lots of things in life that you simply can't buy.
