We have been down this road plenty of times before with previous front offices. It doesn’t matter who the player has been, but the general theme has been the same: Juventus want negotiations with whatever club is on the other end of the phone done by a certain date on the calendar.
It’s no different for Juventus’ talks with Paris Saint-Germain for Randal Kolo Muani.
As players on the current Juventus roster continue their preparations for the start of the 2025-26 season at their week-long preseason training camp in Germany, there is still the reality that they’re not giving up in trying to sign Kolo Muani this summer. As La Gazzetta dello Sport reported on Wednesday, Kolo Muani is still training on his own as PSG try to find him a new home before the end of the summer transfer window. In turn, there’s only so much more time that Juventus general manager Damien Comolli may be giving the European champions when it comes to the negotiations. There could very well be a rough deadline approaching, with Gazzetta saying Juventus want to have some sort of resolution — good or bad — come the middle of August.
Or, specifically, Aug. 13, which is a little more than a week before Juve’s Aug. 24 season opener against Parma at Allianz Stadium.
Considering how talks with PSG have gone thus far, it’s hard to really know if this “deadline” is actually a thing or if Juventus are going to be willing to take this to the wire even though they may risk losing out on a striker who clearly wants to return to Turin after a success six-month stay earlier this year. As a lot of Europe participates in a striker-palooza of sorts with big names going to big clubs — mainly in England because that’s where all the money is these days — it feels like it’s only a matter of time before Kolo Muani turns into a serious option up front for somebody other than Juventus.
Therefore, not only does a deadline matter, but also something that can break this deadlock between the two sides.
(Of course, this is only half of the striker-related deadlock currently taking place at Juventus as Dusan Vlahovic’s future is far from settled even though everything still points to him leaving the club this summer. When that will happen, though, still remains to be seen as we sit here a week into August and there still isn’t much of any kind of market for the 25-year-old Serbian forward who led Juve in goals in Serie A last season.)
We know what the hold up is between Juve and PSG. One side wants this to be a loan with option to buy. The other side wants it to be a loan with obligation to buy and a good amount of money up front. So if the clock is truly ticking on top of the simple fact that the new Serie A season is just 2 1/2 weeks away, there better start to be some serious progress soon or else Juve’s striker position outside of Jonathan David will look a lot more uncertain than it already is.
