Roma Leads Italy in Capital Gains Over Past Five Years

I can't really say it much better than the folks at RomaNews did in passing along this story: no fan base knows the pain of June 30th quite like Roma fans, the date by which Roma so often has to sell its star players to satiate the FFP beast. Roma face a Sophie's choice nearly every summer: sell your star players or face a stiff fine from the upstanding folks at UEFA. Never mind the fact that no team outside of Italy seems to give a damn about FFP, Roma always have the blade drawn against their necks.

From Miralem Pjanic to Leandro Paredes to Antonio Rüdiger to Mohamed Salah, Roma has offloaded an awful lot of talent over the past few years, so much so that they've led the league in capital gains over the past five years. According to RomaNews, the Giallorossi, under the guidance of James Pallotta, have amassed an astounding €331 million in capital gains from their cavalcade of stars over the past half decade, a figure that doesn't even account for the sales of Alisson and Kostas Manolas over the past two summers, which would add another €130 million to the coffers.

Now, before you point it out, RomaNews doesn't mention or consider the motivations behind those sales, but if nothing else it speaks to the sheer volume of Roma's annual garage sale. Moreover, and pointing somewhat to our earlier point, Italian teams have raked in €2.67 billion in capital gains over that same look-back period, narrowly trailing the Premierships €2.68 billion. For whatever reason, clubs on the Peninsula aren't quite as adept at the bookkeeping ballet as their continental counterparts.

So your eyes did not deceive you—Roma's supermarket has been busy over the past five years, and (sadly) shows no signs of slowing down. With no stadium of their own, Roma are almost entirely dependent on Champions League revenue, making every summer signing in effect a second mortgage; sure, a new kitchen is nice, but something's gotta give when the bank comes calling.

Needless to say, if we want to avoid the sight of Cengiz Ünder or Nicolo Zaniolo moving abroad, it's fourth place or bust for Roma this season.

Anything less than that and it'll be supermarket season again come June 30, 2020.