Juventus CEO Beppe Marotta has given a lengthy interview on the Zone 11 to be aired on Rai Sport 1 at 22.45 on Friday. Calciomercato.com’s editorial director Stefano Agresti and Evaristo Beccalossi were also guests on the show. Here are some of the main points put to Marotta.
 

ON DE LAURENTIIS & HIGUAIN – “I know Aurelio well, he is a passionate man and with Higuain there was a lot of controversy surrounding his move to Juventus. We did everything above board alerting Napoli that we were prepared to pay the buy-out clause which is what we did. It’s not true however, that this sale was closely linked to the departure of Paul Pogba. We could have done the deal and still retained him because in the past five years under the management of Andrea Agnelli our turnover has more than doubled and we have considerable firepower if we want to buy new players”.  

ON RAIOLA – “With Mino we have a love/hate relationship and even if he sometimes makes exorbitant demands we still work well together as he is a sincere person and always speaks his mind”.
 

ON MILAN-JUVE – “I didn’t expect this to be a top of the table challenge. Milan in recent years, has undergone major transition but Galliani has done well to make use of what is available to him, focusing on bringing in younger players. We will face a team that is high on confidence and therefore we must be fully concentrated on Saturday night”.
 

ON THE CHINESE & INTER – “This is the sign of the times and their involvement in our clubs is a good thing if we cannot find Italian entrapeneurs who are prepared to invest large sums in football. I don’t want to go into the situation of what has happened at Inter, they have a responsibility to resolve the problems themselves. I will say one thing however; the club must come before the team and to achive important results you need an excellent management team”.
Zone 11 PM is on Rai Sport 1 on Friday at 22.45


Steve Mitchell @barafundler