Exclusive: Why Juventus didn't sign Di Maria last summer
- Kaustubh Pandey
It is believed that Juventus sporting director Fabio Paratici held two meetings with Di Maria’s agent- Pablo Sabbag, who is now the Argentine’s new representative after he parted ways with Jorge Mendes recently.
PSG were demanding a fee in the region of 45 million euros from the Old Lady, if they wanted to sign the winger that the Parisiens signed from Manchester United in 2015. It wasn’t really the fee that discouraged Juve from signing Di Maria though.
The first problem pertained to the fact that Di Maria wanted to be a more regular part of the club’s plans than they were willing to guarantee. The signings of Douglas Costa from Bayern Munich and that of young Federico Bernardeschi meant that Di Maria wouldn’t have played to regularly at Turin.
The second drawback was the former Real Madrid man’s age. He will turn 30 in February next year and Juventus felt that having him on a 8 to 9 million euros per season contract would make little sense.