What is Matthijs de Ligt’s Juventus Future?

When Juventus bought de Ligt from Ajax in 2019 for a fee of €80M, a lot of supporters of the club saw the player as not only the future, but also someone who might serve as Captain. But shortly after the contract was signed, we learned that agent Mino Raiola put in a clause that could see the player leave the team after year three if a bid came in of €125M. An enormous fee, even at the time pre COVID, but still it made some supporters wonder if de Ligt was just using Juve as a stepping stone club before he made his big move in the future.

Well, the future appears to be the present as last week in an interview with a Dutch sports channel, Mino when asked about the future of his client replied that de Ligt and himself both agree it is time for a change. When naming clubs where he thought he could make the move too were of course the big money spenders in the EPL, Real Madrid and Barcelona. The move to Barcelona would make de Ligt leaving the club extra painful for supporters who for a couple years now have been bragging about the players decision too pick Juventus over Barcelona, who at the time were considered favourites to land the young dutchman.

To make matters worse according to a recent report, when Juventus bought de Ligt from Ajax, Raiola put in a clause that stated if Barcelona made a bid for only €75M, the player would be free to join the club. The good news is, with Barcelona financial struggles, this fee, even though at a €50M discount, may be a little to rich for the club at the moment, leaving the players only option to leaving Juventus is for someone to step up and pay the full clause, and seeing how a player like Romelu Lukaku was just sold to Chelsea at the age of 28 for a record fee of €125M, I see no reason why Chelsea or any other of the big Premier League sides, opening the vault for a player just as valuable and several years his junior.