Federico Chiesa’s agent Fali Ramadani has spent all summer trying to find the player a new club. That Liverpool have turned up in the final week of the season is the stuff of dreams for him.
Despite Juventus being prepared to sell Chiesa for a low price, due to him being out of Thiago Motta’s plans and having less than a year left on his contract, there wasn’t the rush for his signature which Ramadani probably expected.
Multiple trips to England were made to try and drum up interest, and around half the Premier League were linked without those situations going anywhere.
Gazzetta dello Sport, and their senior journalist Carlo Laudisa, now report on the player’s move to Liverpool and give some background to explain what’s happened.
Laudisa says everyone is celebrating the move to Liverpool, after the player went through something of a ‘tormented summer’.
Such was the lack of approaches, Juventus even worried at one stage that Chiesa and his agent weren’t trying to find a new club, but instead planning on running the contract down and taking free agent status next summer.
The 26-year-old is said to have asked Juventus for €7.5m a year, after tax, to extend his contract with them. They responded with an offer of €5m, and Laudisa explains getting that €7.5m became a ‘matter of principle’ for the player, with him perhaps more caught up in the pride of winning that deal than the actual thirst for the money.
All of that, say Gazzetta, has helped him end up at Liverpool, who it’s stated will pay the €7.5m, after tax, and send around €12m to Juventus.
Motta is said to be especially pleased with the transfer, and Gazzetta state that, had a move not been secured, ‘a diplomatic issue of no small importance would have arisen with an uncomfortable cohabitation’.
There’s a belief the Premier League will suit Chiesa better than Serie A has in recent seasons, and that him fighting to get into a ‘team of champions’ at Liverpool can only be a good thing for the Italian national team.
He’ll be wished well on his new, and very impressive, adventure after his Juventus period turned sour.
