AS Roma president James Pallotta held a media conference at Hotel Residenza in Ripetta this morning, taking questions from journalists on all manner of subjects. He spoke openly about the past season and the club’s plans for the future, as well as his relationship with head coach Rudi Garcia, the Giallorossi management team, the fans and Roma skipper Francesco Totti.
“The reason why I called this is I want to have an open forum. Ask whatever questions you want. I’m tired of seeing certain articles that are made up about coaches or how things operate, so let’s have an open forum about how things work at Roma. Thank you for coming and good morning.”
The transfer market offers fans the chance to dream. What sort of summer can Roma fans expect?
“We’re working in the transfer market today but we’re not going to tell everybody in the world what we’re doing while we’re doing it. We have a couple of players who will be leaving and we know there are three or four positions we need to strengthen. One of the things that hurt us last year was not having Kevin [Strootman] and Leo [Castan], who are extremely strong players for us. We’ll probably see four or five new players and a few players leaving and we’re working on a couple of things right now.”
Are you confident about keeping Nainggolan?
“We’re working every single day because we want Nainggolan to stay with the team. He wants to stay and we’re doing everything to keep him.”
After finishing 17 points behind Juventus this year, can Roma bridge the gap with them next year?
“I think the second half of our year was a tough one for a number of reasons but it was more a training and injury issue than anything else. We had 13 ties and I think at least half of those – if the team had been in better shape and with less injuries – could have been wins and then we’d be right there. When we’re healthy I don’t think there’s such a big distance with Juventus at the end of the day. They had a great year. Roma fans might not be happy about this but it was nice to see Juventus in the Champions League final because it helps Italian football a lot. It actually makes teams like us and a few others look better in the eyes of the world and European football and how we can play.”
Is it harder to win the Scudetto or build the stadium?
“Good question! Let’s start with the stadium. As I said yesterday, I think the process has gone well so far and all things being equal we’re going to be ready to put the shovels in the ground.
“In terms of the Scudetto, if we’re a healthy team and if we get the players we’re looking at in the transfer market, and with the changes we’ve already made on the training and performance side and a whole bunch of other initiatives associated with that, I think the team will be in the best shape they’ve ever been and next year they’ll compete for the Scudetto. Last year they were doing that up to mid-year point and then injuries and other issues like that hurt us a lot.
“I’m not sure one is more difficult than the other. I’d like to see both of them!”
Which area of the team do you feel needs strengthening the most?
“I think when we’re all healthy we have as good a midfield as there is anywhere in European football.
“Defensively it certainly hurt that Castan wasn’t there; I think it would have helped everyone on defense. Manolas came in and had a good year but I think he’ll have an even better one next year with Leo coming back. The doctors gave him the green light last week and that couldn’t be better news for him and his family, and secondarily us.
“We definitely need to score more. I think that’s been one of the issues and we know that we need to figure out something in the striker position, as an example. Last year our sustained attack was an issue. There were flashes of brilliance during the year, an example being the first game against CSKA Moscow but also when we were down 1-0 against Juve and we were down a man in the last 30 minutes, we had them completely on their heels when we were attacking. The only way you can consistently attack for 90 minutes is if you’re in great shape and as I said that’s a big issue for me on what happened last year. I’m not putting any blame on anybody – it’s all of us collectively on the performance side – but you can be damn sure that we’ve made major changes and it’s a very collaborative effort going forward and that already started two weeks ago. We could show you pictures of the changes going on at Trigoria and the practice facility already. But offensively we’ve just got to score more and be able to make sustained attacks for 90 minutes if we have to.”
In NBA they have a luxury tax, which is very simple, whereas the Financial Fair Play we have in Europe is difficult to understand. There are clubs with much bigger debts than Roma who are still buying or said to be looking to buy players worth €50-100 million. Do you think FFP really works or is the competition unfair?
“I’m honestly trying to figure it out! I found it hard to understand when we were in Switzerland and gave the presentation and then when they came to spend time at our offices. I’ll continue to say that Roma should be the poster boy for Financial Fair Play. We inherited significant losses – that’s easy to show – and in a couple of years we went to a profit position. We were on a very slight profit so don’t go out and say we have a profit and we’re not spending it on players. We are spending it on players. We were surprised we got any penalty at all. I wonder myself about other teams when I see some of the purchases which are supposedly going on and the amounts of money being paid, when I look at the balance sheets and the revenues of other teams I guess we’re just going to have to wait this out and see what happens with them. But yes, I am kind of surprised at some of the things going on in the transfer market.”
Roma are looking for a top-class striker but still have to come to terms with FFP restrictions. Is it too soon for fans to dream of big names like Higuain or Dzeko on huge wages?
“No, that’s not an issue.”
Do you still believe Rudi Garcia can be Roma’s Alex Ferguson? And what does Rudi Garcia being Roma’s Ferguson actually mean?
“Rudi and I met yesterday before he takes off today for a couple of days’ well-deserved vacation. It was a great meeting. We’re on the same page across the board. We recapped the season, I gave him my thoughts and he gave me his thoughts on it, and as I said we’re on pretty much exactly the same page across the board. Most of the conversation was after me asking him ‘What do you need to make the whole organization better?’ And not surprisingly we’ve started doing all of the things he said already.
“When I mentioned Alex Ferguson, I mean if you look at his career – and it’s a spectacular body of work – I’d like to see the same thing with Rudi. He’s 100% on board with what we’re doing. Rudi even said, ‘Given when the stadium’s going to open, can I have an extension?’ So we’ve got no issues. I’ve never spoken to another coach or another team about bringing in another coach.
“I think Rudi’s probably had more wins in his first two years than any other coach in their first two years here. To get in the Champions League in the first two years is a hell of a thing for us. As Rudi has said, we learned a lot from this past Champions League and with the experience he feels we’ll be better served for next year’s Champions League games. I’m very happy with Rudi. I think he can be the coach for a long period of time if that’s what he wants and we want him, and right now that’s what he wants. He’s very excited to get going. He knows what we’ve been adding already in terms of helping him with the training side, and this allows him to spend much more time on coaching strategy, working on sets, practices, film, data – all of the things we want him to focus on and have all of the other things that make his team better here.
“That’s the way the place works. I wish I had a chalkboard up here to show you. It isn’t like ‘Alex Zecca is coming in, Mauro [Baldissoni] is this, Sabatini is that, Garcia this…’ It’s not about taking away power from people. That’s not the way we operate it. You might not be used to it in Rome or in Italy but we actually work and make decisions as a team. It’s more of a circle than all these boxes and wondering who has the most power this week or who will have it next week. That’s not the way we’ve built this operation and you have to please get it in your heads that we are really working as a team. And it’s not a one-month, two-month, one-year, two-year project. It takes time. I’ve only been lucky enough to be president for three years. It’ll be three years this July. The first six months I just started analyzing operations. Italo [Zanzi] only came in two and a half years ago. Mauro only came in two years ago. Some of the other changes we’ve been making have only been in the last year or so. We’re going to continually try and improve but I wish you’d just look at us as a circle. We’re a team, we don’t have power struggles. That’s just not the way the place is going to operate.”
What do you think about a minority stake (47-48%) in AC Milan changing hands for almost €500 million? Agnelli says the numbers can’t be explained so easily. What’s your view on that? Do you fear that it could create another rival for Roma on the same level as Juve?
“First of all, I think if anybody comes in and can help strengthen the league it’s better for all of us. We just have to do the things on the pitch and the management side versus the financial side better than other teams and that’s what we’re striving for. I think the more strong teams in Italy the better. Let’s look at what the EPL has done in the last 10 years and a lot of that has to do with not just teams but the federations etc. on those types of things. So in terms of AC Milan, it’s not a done deal. It actually makes us more valuable and gives us more flexibility if that is the case, for what Milan is selling. I think we’ve got something substantially different from Milan at the end of the day, which makes us much more valuable – and I don’t mean valuable in terms of ‘Oh, Pallotta’s going to sell’; I mean it makes us more valuable around the world for our marketing, our sponsorships and all the other things to increase revenue that ends up getting ploughed back into the team. We have something much more valuable than Milan does because we have Rome. I’ll continue to say that Rome is the best city in the world. And if Milan’s going to be worth that amount of money then I think Rome’s worth substantially more.”
Why have Roma been without a main sponsor for 715 days and how are you going to resolve that?
“We have an awful lot of interest in shirt sponsorship and being in the Champions League for a second year helps a lot. We made a mistake frankly when we first went out to get a sponsor for the shirt. And it wasn’t the amount of money we’re asking for; it has to do with the fact that the original thought from the outside agency was to tie it to a stadium deal, where someone would have a shirt for three or four years then roll that into a stadium deal and naming rights. That’s the way it was going out at first and we disagreed with that really only in the last six months or so and have had to make some changes on that. Frankly I think most people probably never believed we would get to where we are with the stadium today and that hopefully we’ll be breaking ground by the end of the year with it. So trying to tie one into the other was a mistake.”
Why did you sign a ten-year contract with Nike for more or less half the amount of your previous agreement with Kappa, and more or less half of what Napoli – a club with roughly the same commercial value as Roma – will earn from theirs?
“That’s a spectacular question. We know that over a long period of time the Nike deal could be substantial and substantially higher than others. In the short run we’re not happy with the amount of production that Nike is putting out there. I get lots of emails and phone calls from people who can’t get the equipment that they want from around the world. At the end of the day, Nike has to get their ass in gear and start producing more because we’ve got substantial demand around the world on equipment. So right now it’s in Nike’s court to produce more and we’re having discussions with them to produce more – substantially more. Based on our analysis we think that demand last year was at least 150% more on what was sold in shirts. So I’m sure Nike won’t be happy to hear this but they’ve got to get it going if we’re to have a long-term good relationship with them. Right now they’re producing spectacular kits but now we have to sell them and we’ve got to get better distribution out there.”
How do Roma plan in the short term to bridge the revenue gap with Juventus, who take in at least €125 million more than Roma?
“I think we can absolutely close that gap. In the next six months to a year we have a number of initiatives of other things in terms of merchandising which we think are going to be substantial. We have a number of items in terms of content that we’re going to get paid for around the world, in terms of media production. At the end of the day, we’ve got to get the stadium and when we get that stadium there’s no question in my mind that our revenue number, the turnover, is going to be higher than any team in Italy. There’s no doubt with what we have in terms of curation and the number of events that we’ll have in that stadium that the turnover has to be substantially higher.”
There’s been some criticism this season of the coach and the sporting director. Do you have anything to say to the players? Maybe you saw something you didn’t like compared to the season before.
“If the question is comparing the players from year to year, I think again it didn’t help having a couple of our toughest players injured the whole year. Secondarily I think, again, our players had a lot of nagging injuries and in the second half of the season they just weren’t in as good a shape as they could be, and it’s not the players’ fault. It’s our fault if anything on getting them in shape, collectively. So I think that’s one of the major differences.
“I also think that the game against Bayern probably didn’t help on people’s psyche and I think I said right afterwards, ‘shit happens’. If you look at what we did against CSKA Moscow in the first game, when we won 5-1, then you look at the second game, Moscow against Bayern Munich when Bayern only wins on a penalty kick, I think it was 1-0, and then we have that game against Bayern, that’s what I meant by ‘shit happens’. At any one time, someone can blow out another, but it doesn’t mean that that team is so much better than another team. But in some cases it gets into somebody’s psyche for a little while and I think that unfortunately did happen this year, at least for a while.
“What I was very happy to see is that when we were back on our heels and weren’t playing as well as we could have in the last month of the season, the team turned it around. They had great practices and I think Rudi did a great job. When push comes to shove, in what I think was the biggest game for Roma in the last two years, it was the second-to-last game against Lazio, the team came through and it was important to get us into the Champions League for a hundred different reasons. The team comes up, 1-0, they could have got down again when it got tied 1-1 but they came back and scored and to me that showed there’s a tremendous amount of heart and grit on this team and that bodes well for what we’re doing for next year.”
This season, perhaps for the first time, you were contested by a section of the fans for your decision not to appeal against the closure of the Curva after the banners in the Roma v Napoli match. How would you like to respond to that? And do you have other initiatives in mind to help fight racism, perhaps through Roma Cares?
“In terms of the Curva Sud, I wish all of you would please stop thinking that I am against the Curva Sud. It’s not factual at all. I think the Curva Sud is an incredibly important force in Roman football. I think they’re unbelievably important to us and when we build a new stadium it’s going to be even more so because they’re going to be right on the pitch, just nine meters away, and I wouldn’t want to play on that side with the Curva Sud there!
“So I’ll continue to say it’s a very, very small amount of people that cause issues for everybody and not just in Rome – it happens in other stadiums in Europe. They’ve got to stop it because it doesn’t help anything we’re doing and if there’s violence or racism in the Curva Sud or anywhere else in the stadium I’ll continue to speak out against that. If there are situations like when I did speak out against a few fans, if they’re going to treat my players the way they treated my players, they’re going to hear it from me and from the rest of us. If you’re a fan, you’re a fan in good times and bad. The players aren’t dying down, they’re working hard, and we all want to win at the end of the day. If any of the fans anywhere are going to attack our players, I’m going to go right back at them.
“In terms of Roma Cares, I think Catia [Augelli] is going a great job with it. We’ve got some great plans and events. We were working on one yesterday and hopefully that will happen some time next spring I think, and it’ll be great for Roma Cares. Catia’s doing a great job in terms of educational initiatives and getting the players involved, and we’ll have a substantial amount of programs over the next bunch of years. It’s an important piece to it. And no, I have not funded my million dollars yet. Catia will get a wire on it next week.”
Totti will be 39 in a few months and this is the last year of his contract as a player. Do you have an agreement with him for afterwards? Could Totti’s presence alongside another top striker create a rivalry and perhaps become a problem?
“Francesco has been an unbelievable player and an asset to Roma and Rome. He has a role with the team as long as he wants and we certainly want him to play a big role. This is his last year under contract. We haven’t had any discussions on how many other years he’ll go on. It will be a joint decision but Francesco hasn’t come to us and said ‘I want to stop this year’ or ‘I want to play another year’. As long as he can help the team he’s a huge asset to it. After his on-the-pitch career is over, we would certainly like him to have a large role at Roma. We’ve had zero discussions on what that role will be but suffice it to say he should be a significant part of Roma for the rest of his life. And by the way, I wish some of our younger players were in as good a shape as Francesco is!”
In the last three years Roma have sold some of their best players for big figures – people like Lamela, Marquinhos and Benatia – and then reinvested some of that money. Is that trend likely to continue this year or are some players simply not for sale – Nainggolan and Pjanic for example?
“I’m never going to speak out about what we’re working on in the transfer market while we’re doing it. Every time we sell a player we have a very good rationale for it and it’s not just a monetary situation. Benatia was a special situation. With Marquinhos, getting a mid-thirties bid where you can plough it back into some other players was actually I think a very good deal. Lamela right now is turning out to be a very good sale. And there was rationale. The only time we do things in the transfer market unless it’s a special situation like Benatia – and I think he’s a great player and I would have loved him to stay – is when we think we can reinvest and make the team better. Marquinhos was a great player but that amount of money allowed us to buy a number of players that strengthened the team the year before.”
You’ve mentioned the fitness levels of the team. What is it you think that didn’t work? And what are your targets for next season?
“I think we needed more collaboration on one side of it and that’s what we’ve been putting together recently. I don’t want to put blame on anybody on this from last year. I think most people could see we weren’t in shape in terms of injuries and prevention of injuries or just being in shape the way I think we should have been.
“I made the decision back in January that we would end up making changes and we did a very detailed search and we identified the person we thought was one of the best. We made that decision with him back in March, with Darcy [Norman], who has a great resume. Then there’s Ed Lippi, who was in Boston and has worked with a substantial amount of athletes and all the pro sports teams in Boston. It wasn’t an easy decision for him and his family to move to Rome for the year from Boston. It was a tough decision for me because I know now I’m going to get really fat because I can’t work out with him at all.
“In the last three months, Darcy and Ed have put together a program. They spoke to the best biomechanics people in the world, the best fatigue, sleep and nutrition people in the world and the day after the season ended they knew who was going to stay and who was going to leave, I think Rudi was shocked in those five hours he spent with them on that Monday at just how organized they were. They talked about everything for the whole following year. We decided to keep one of the doctors and we’ve been interviewing doctors around Europe to come in. We brought in the Sports Institute people from Mass General, which is one of the best sports institutes in the world and they too work with athletes from the four teams in Boston, and started an interview process for doctors.
“We’ve had great feedback from the people who have stayed: I’ve got one email which said ‘in the two-day retreat, we had a two-year Master’s course’. They’re unbelievably excited because it’s collaborative and they’re asked for their opinions and are working as a team. If you ask Kevin and Leo, who have worked with them, they’re incredibly impressed. And I think Rudi will say the same thing. The team we’re putting together on the performance side will be among the top three groups in the world. I have no doubt about it. I think you’ll see a substantial difference on how we do things on and off the field. We’ve already torn apart Trigoria, where the performance center was. It’s completely gutted at the moment. So everything is changing.”
Players like De Sanctis, Cole, Maicon, Astori, Balzaretti, Doumbia, Ibarbo and Gervinho might not stay on next season. Can we expect to see a revolution in defense and attack for next season? And what’s the budget available to Sabatini for next year?
“Again, I’m not going to talk about which players are going to be back right now and who we’re going to buy. It just doesn’t make any sense at all to discuss that in the public when we’re negotiating deals in the transfer market. We’re going to do what we feel is best for the team. Will we upset some fans? I don’t know. Some might get upset because it’s their favorite player but we’re going to do the things that are best for the team in the short and intermediate periods.
“As for the budget, it all depends on which players don’t come back, on salary issues and there’s a portion of the money that we have from Champions League after bonuses, expenses and so on that is going towards buying players. So I’ll go back to saying how important that game against Lazio was, because we know that we don’t have to play a knockout game in August and we know right now that we have a certain amount of money that we can spend. It just gives us much more flexibility than we would have had if we hadn’t beaten Lazio. We know what positions we need to strengthen and we’re working on that now but we’re not going to talk about names.”
After Garcia’s conference about a month ago, when he spoke about the gap with Juve, the need to sell before buying, and not leading the fans on, what’s the relationship like between Rudi Garcia and Roma now? Did you have to convince him that things aren’t as he said they are? And does he agree with all the changes, from the medical staff to the possible sale of Gervinho?
“I think it’s clear that Rudi wishes he hadn’t said what he did in the manner he did about Juventus. We’ve spoken about it and I think he knows he made a mistake on that. I don’t think we’re that far away from Juventus by any means. I think we can compete against Juventus and I think we can win. Again, there were certain things in the second half of the last year that I didn’t love but in the first half we were right there.
“In terms of the medical staff, back in December, Rudi, Walter, Italo, Mauro were discussing issues with injuries more than anything else at that time, versus just being able to run for 90 minutes. We made the decision at 3 o’clock in the morning then we put a lot of thought into that afterwards and started doing a search at the beginning of the year to figure out how to improve it. We had made no decisions on who was staying and who was going; we only knew that we wanted to have a better situation for our players. And Rudi has been part of that conversation, going back to the end of the last calendar year.
“As for whether Gervinho stays or not, Rudi also has input in it. Rudi has input on players as do a few others of us because he has a playing system and you have to have players who can play within what Rudi does best. So he’s involved and has input on decisions in the transfer market.
“Going back to the Juventus statement, Rudi knows it came out wrong from what he really meant. And yes, in the short term Juve does have more turnover but when we have the new stadium I think we’ll have substantially more.”
Your policy of buying lots of young players has used up a lot of Roma’s resources. With the aim of winning trophies in mind, will you change strategy slightly and perhaps bring in more experienced players?
“I don’t think that makes sense at all. I think Walter has done a great job of buying young talent. Some of our young players this year had a substantial amount of nagging injuries. I think over time we’ve shown we can buy young players and they’re extremely valuable. I don’t know what your definition of young is – whether it’s 18-19, or 22-23 – but I consider Strootman and Pjanic young purchases. If you look at Marquinhos and what we did, he was 18, 19, he played and was great and was valuable to us in the transfer market. I think there are lots of cases where the policy of young players works for us. I also think you have to take every player on an individual case, as well as how he fits into a team.
“Thank you and have a good summer.”