Juve Boosted By Moggi Commitment
Saturday 8th September 2001
Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi has extended his contract until 2005 and has been promoted to the club's board of directors. But the news was tempered by president Gianni Agnelli's announcement that the club would postpone flotation because of poor market conditions.
Moggi's decision to prolong his stay at Juventus adds to the wave of optimism currently sweeping through the Stadio Delle Alpi.
Top of Serie A after crushing Venezia 4-0 in their season opener, Juve travel to Bergamo to face Atalanta on Sunday confident of a second victory as they bid to reclaim the Scudetto last won in 1998.
The disappointment on missing out on Christian Vieri over the summer has been forgotten as the Bianconeri look forward to the return of Holland international Edgar Davids, who will be back in the side sooner than expected after having his ban for testing positive for nandrolone reduced.
Moggi has long been regarded as one of the most influential and canny managers in Italian football, and in May he turned down an approach from Internazionale president Gabriele Oriali in order to continue his project of pulling Juve back to the top of Serie A.
Moggi arrived at Juventus in 1993 20 years after first joining the club as a scout after leaving Roma following the appointment of president Franco Sensi.
Roma's loss has been Juve's gain. With Moggi at the helm, Juve won their first Serie A title in nine years in 1995 and went on to repeat the feat in 1997 and 1998. An achievement bettered only by lifting the European Cup in 1996 the first time since Michel Platini had lifted the trophy after the infamous Heysel final in 1985 and only the second time in the club's history.
Moggi, who was working as a station master in the town of Civitavecchia in the mid-Seventies, made his name at Torino and Napoli before accepting Roma's challenge, but it is at Juve that he has fully merited his title of the King of the Market.
Under Moggi, Italy international Alessandro del Piero was discovered as a teenager, Pippo Inzaghi was bought for a song and this summer sold to Milan for �23 million, and there were healthy profits made too on Vieri and, of course, Zinedine Zidane.
This summer, Moggi has once again left his stamp on the Juve side. After finishing runners-up over the past two seasons, Juve have made wholesale changes to the squad to return to the top with Moggi presiding over the world record sale of Zidane to Real Madrid for �48 million.
The arrivals of Lilian Thuram, Pavel Nedved and Gianluigi Buffon have come at a high price, but have undoubtedly improved an already formidable side.
The sale of Inzaghi proved shrewd business coupled with the arrival of Marcelo Salas from Lazio and Moggi's refusal to release the exciting David Trezeguet, who is expected to make his mark this season alongside Del Piero.
Moggi, however, has not worked alone and it is the successful partnership he has forged with Roberto Bettega and Antonio Giraudo that has given Juve the potential to go on and dominate their Milanese and Rome rivals.
Agnelli, then, has ensured he has a managerial team for the future, like his side on the pitch, that is the envy of all Serie A, but his short-term plans for flotation have not met with such success.
Agnelli has benefited from seeing the effects flotation has had on Roma and Lazio and has wisely elected to stay out of the markets as he watches their share price plummet.
Since floating last year Roma have seen their share price drop 35 per cent this year.
Lazio are now at approximately their initial asking price when they became the first Serie A club to go public in 1998.
The Juve president was at pains to point out that flotation has not been ruled out, but with stock markets round the world reaching lows not seen in years over the past three days, Agnelli will watch with patience before taking the plunge on the Milan stock exchange.
"We did all we had to, looking at the listing, but if the market is going to keep on dropping then we must stop this project," he said. "Under the lowest value we fixed, we don't want to go ahead at the moment."
The Agnellis, owners of Fiat and Juve, had planned to sell off 35 per cent stake in the club, with IFI, a company owned by the Agnellis, retaining the remainder.
The money raised would have allowed Juventus to purchase the Stadio delle Alpi and build a huge sports and commercial centre to be known as Mondo Juve, a project that has now been put on hold.
