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Forza Roma Sempre!

I'll start with the sporting aspect: what were the successes and failures, and should Massara be criticized (and why should he be)?

The main success of the window was not selling our key players. Back under Ghisolfi (and not without Ranieri's involvement), a new contract was secured for Mile Svilar. After some hesitation that made everyone nervous, the club ultimately refused to sell Manu Kone to Inter. They weren't tempted by a very modest offer from Borussia Dortmund for Matias Soule. In defense, Mancini and Ndicka remained, and in attack, Dybala stayed, though there were seemingly no advanced negotiations for them anyway. In any case, the core of the team was preserved. For that, they get a thumbs-up.

A success of the window was the loan for Ferguson. It's too early to judge if this guy will reach his potential, but the start is promising. He's a mobile and quick player, not selfish, plays for his teammates, uses his body well, and makes himself available for the ball. I'm handing out praise cautiously because I remember Tammy Abraham's start, with his immense amount of active movement and two immediate assists, but Evan has impressed me. I also like the structure of the deal – we've protected ourselves from problems if Ferguson doesn't live up to expectations. The only "but" is that the buyout fee is a bit high, but we won't nitpick.

A success of the window was the loan for Tsimikas. It's the perfect formula and a very high-quality player. Tsimikas is Liverpool's perpetually promising footballer who had the misfortune of playing on the same flank as Andrew Robertson. Winning a starting spot from a prime Robertson was nearly impossible, and while Tsimikas showed a good level, he sat on the bench. He's 29 now, and it feels like he's been 29 for a very long time, but Kostas hasn't forgotten how to play. It's too late to build a team around him – players in his position rarely maintain a high level into their late thirties – but for one season, he is an excellent reinforcement. Now, the left flank doesn't seem so scary, even if Angelino gets injured.

The main failure of the window was Massara's working methods. Otto von Bismarck said, "Politics is the art of the possible." And I can say with confidence that Ricky Massara would make a terrible politician. I won't dwell on Gasperini's role (I'll definitely talk about that, but not now), but Ricky's approach was completely uninspired.

All the problems stemmed from one root cause: he fixated on the same players, and at times, for a whole week, not a single new name would appear, even at the rumor level (!). This led to other problems: selling clubs understood they had a monopoly and jacked up the prices. And Massara overpaid – you can't back down when you've been chasing just one player for weeks. Sometimes, the players themselves got brazen, leading to humiliating sagas like the one with Sancho. In short, a lack of flexibility, overpayments, and transfer failures are what defined the work of Roma's new sporting director.

The main failure of the window was an incomplete squad. Pretty much every club-adjacent resource was talking about the need to sign a left winger back in May. The left forward position is Roma's most glaring weakness. But that is the one position we failed to fill. And there were options, but we either entered the race far too late (like with the Gloukh and Paixao deals) or tried to smash our head through a brick wall (like with Sancho's demands and the inflated price for George). In the end, for our weakest position, we signed the injury-prone Bailey, who hasn't played that position in four years. That's a great plan, Ricky. That's fuckin' ingenious, if I understand it correctly. It's a Swiss fuckin' watch.

With the attack, we also got fixated on the option with Milan and tried every possible way to convince the Rossoneri into a swap. We failed, and now our backup forward is the very expensive Dovbyk, who was all but officially on the transfer list. I'll also note one other issue: our right-sided center-back is Hermoso, who is naturally a left-back/left-sided center-back. So far, Bologna and Pisa haven't posed any difficult challenges for him, but I fear the Wesley-Hermoso pairing will be our weak spot, and teams will target it.

A failure of the window was the trouble with sales. Ghisolfi's efforts sweeten the pill a little, but if you put the transfers of Le Fee, Dahl, and Zalewski aside, Massara's record on sales is a complete disaster. This summer, we only sold Tammy, Shomurodov, Solbakken, and a few kids from the youth team. Paredes also left on his own via a release clause. Otherwise, it was an endless stream of simple loans without an obligation to buy: Kumbulla, Saud, Salah-Eddine. There were no profitable sales of secondary players like Celik or Rensch either. But the biggest problem isn't even that: we have two players on very high salaries whom the club almost officially put up for sale: Pellegrini and Dovbyk. Selling both was a crucial task, but Massara failed it.

Weak. Roma seems to have spent a decent amount for a supposedly "very economical" transfer window, but I can't say the team has become much stronger. Moreover, it wasn't strengthened in its most problematic positions: on the left wing, we have El Shaarawy, who is not 3,000 years old but, in terms of age, gets closer to his Pharaoh nickname; at right-back, we're shuffling through youngsters and out-of-position players; and poor Artem looks sad next to Ferguson.

Before the transfer window opened, I didn't expect Roma to go on a major shopping spree; I was anticipating a big vacuum cleaner aimed at Belgium, Austria, and the Netherlands. But in the end, Roma decided to "re-buy" and invest heavily. The only thing is, I'm not at all convinced these investments will pay off. In the next part, I'll analyze the financial component in detail and point out some weaknesses there as well, but for now, based purely on the footballing aspects, Massara can only count on a solid five on a ten-point scale.

A year ago, we spent €100 million in the transfer market and had a scary net spend, yet we still came out with a positive balance. There were reasons for this: Roma's expenses on amortization and salaries for deadwood players had significantly decreased, Ghisolfi was able to offload passengers like Houssem Aouar effectively and even profitably, and the acquisitions were amortized over 5 years, so they didn't weigh on the financial statements as heavily.

This year, everything was different from the start. Last year, we rode a massive wave of expiring bloated contracts. This time, however, Roma was met with a dead calm. At the end of the season, the financial burden on the club only increased due to the return of hefty contracts like those of Hermoso, Kumbulla, and other loan-riders. In that context, Ranieri's words last May about a "limited" transfer window and "no revolution" in the squad seemed logical.

But now, Ranieri has retired to a well-deserved pension and is living his best life, mostly free from the stresses of football. Ghisolfi has left for England, and at the helm of the club are the ultimate revolutionary, Gian Piero Gasperini, and his new partner, Ricky Massara. Instead of Ranieri's "limited" window, the Friedkins decided to double down. Let's see how that turned out financially.

First, let me repeat my constant thesis: in the transfer balance, you can't just look at the net spend, rejoice at the green numbers, and fear the red ones. UEFA calculates money differently.

A club's expenses on players are composed of the players' gross salaries and the amortization of their contracts. Gross salary is straightforward. Amortization is calculated as the total transfer fee divided by the number of years on the contract.

Example: We bought Kone for €18 million (€20 million with bonuses), signed him to a 5-year contract, and gave him a gross salary of €5.2 million (including taxes). The annual amortization is €3.6 million + the €5.2 million salary. In total, Roma's annual cost for Kone is €8.8 million, not the €18-20 million shown in the net spend. And this cost must be compared not with pure sales figures, but with the reduction in the club's expenses across various parameters.

It's important to add one clarification: the summer transfer window is split into two parts. All deals made in June fall into the 2024-25 financial season, which UEFA concludes in July before the new season begins. Therefore, when calculating this window's income and expenses, the sales of Abraham, Zalewski, Dahl, and Le Fe are practically not counted. The main benefit for the club is that it stopped paying their salaries, but the net profit from, for example, Nicola Zalewski's transfer, was attributed to last year and was used to avoid severe punishment from UEFA. Thus, those millions cannot be used again in calculating the financial results of this window.

During this transfer window, Roma spent €68.5 million, excluding bonuses. Just like last year, all expensive players were signed to 5-year contracts. The most costly players for the club in terms of amortization are Wesley (€5 million per year) and El Aynaoui (€4.4 million per year). These figures will rise slightly at the end of the year when bonuses are added to the amortization cost, but for now, these are the real numbers. A total of €32 million was spent on salaries (gross). Interestingly, this salary burden is comparable to last season's acquisitions, when we added €34 million per year to the wage bill.

If we sum up all the new expenses from this transfer window, it turns out that Roma increased its annual spending by €46.5 million. This is less than during last year's big shopping spree (which was €59 million).

At the end of each season (July 1st), a club typically sees a significant spike in income as expensive players depart, freeing up space on the balance sheet for new opportunities in the transfer market. We had our share of this as well. As I wrote above, sales made before June 30th don't count toward the new season's profit, but the club saves on the amortization and contracts. By the way, this doesn't work the same way with loans: the club sheds the weight of salaries, but we continue to pay the amortization for someone like Kumbulla, even though his last official match for Roma was in April 2023.

In total, by July 1st, we had shed the contracts and amortization for Le Fe, Abraham, Hummels, Dahl, Nelsson, Gourna-Douath, Saelemaekers, and Zalewski. On a side note, I want to point out just how cheap Alexis was for us: a starting player and the team's second-leading scorer in Serie A cost the club less than Nelsson, who was brought in on loan as a stopgap (and wasn't particularly expensive himself).

In total, by July 1st, we freed up €23.1 million. Since we're comparing everything to last year, I'll say for the record: on July 1, 2024, Roma's balance improved by a staggering €75.6 million. We entered that transfer market with a huge surplus and didn't even come close to spending the amount we had saved. This year, unfortunately, it's a different story.

It's very disappointing that Massara couldn't really improve the balance through sales. Over the entire summer, Roma received only €7.2 million in net profit from the sales of Paredes, Solbakken, Shomurodov (which was a loan-to-buy formula, so Roma gets profit but continues to pay off amortization), and Coletta (who, like other youth players, isn't mentioned by Calcio e Finanza, but we remember the player and the verbal battles surrounding his departure). Including all loans and expense reductions, Roma's total income this summer was €41.5 million per year. Compared to last year's €109.3 million, it looks bleak.

If we tally up the balance, we have to admit that Roma ended this summer in the red, with a deficit of €5 million. Last year, our summer balance was a +€50 million surplus.

The same goes for salaries. We have significantly inflated the wage bill. According to Capology, it stands at €108.9 million + €12.3 million in bonuses. This is Roma's largest wage bill since the days of Paulo Fonseca; since the 2021-22 season, we have consistently spent less (sometimes slightly, sometimes significantly).

According to ASRomaData, the transfers of Wesley, Bailey, and El Aynaoui had the biggest impact on the balance sheet, while almost all the net profit from Shomurodov's transfer was eaten up by his amortization.

By a large margin, Paulo Dybala remains the most expensive player in terms of cost to the team. He is followed by Dovbyk and Pellegrini, all of whom have total club expenses exceeding €10 million per year. Soule, Wesley, and Mancini are approaching that mark. According to ASRomaData, the total cost to cover the squad has risen from €154.5 million to €176.3 million.

Finally, let's try to compare our €5 million loss for this summer window with others. According to Calcio e Finanza, Roma was the only club in Italy's top 8 to finish the transfer window with a negative balance.

In reality, Milan's balance is even better: after this table was published, the Rossoneri sold Yacine Adli to Al-Shabab, which, including all forms of profit, improved their balance to +€85 million per year. One could say that Milan's transfer window is a response to not qualifying for European competitions – and that would be true.

Something else worries me more: remember how Inter haggled over the Lookman transfer, fighting over every €3 million and ultimately backing out over a minimal difference? Well, this is the same Inter that just played in the Champions League final, is in the lucrative Club World Cup playoffs, finished second in Italy, and will compete in the new Champions League season. The Lookman transfer wouldn't have put Inter in the red – it would have just reduced their positive balance from the window, but Marotta deemed it excessive.

We must remember that these millions are not so much cash in a wallet as they are a discount on the annual cost of running the club. In theory, you can increase this cost, but only if the squad is sustainable. Back in early January, the new rules from the mafia known as UEFA that we will have to comply with were released. At the time, Calcio e Finanza published an article stating that Roma was the only team at risk.

The situation now worries me. We have always operated at a substantial loss (€-120 million in 2023, €-81 million in 2024), and now we have increased the cost of the squad. Furthermore, let's not forget the circus starring Dan and Ryan Friedkin regarding sponsors: Riyadh Season paid us €12.5 million a year; now that money is gone, and it's unclear if it will be replaced. I must stress that I am not inside the club and may not be aware of certain financial processes, but based on all available information, this is the picture that emerges.

But there are two relatively positive factors that keep me from covering my head in ashes just yet.