Del Piero
A billionaire contract that returns
from the legend
Juve has already prepared
two contracts
March 29, 1999
La Repubblica
By Maurizio Crossetti
Turin - On the field after
Easter, with a contract never seen. Slowly, slowly, between anyday, Alessandro
Del Piero will run alone over a desert meadow, but it's much alrerady,
it's the end of the illness and the beggining of anything that looks like
the future. Through the crutches and the doubts, he knows the colors of
his next jersey. Del Piero doesn't fear the monotony, his world will go
on a bit black and a bit white. It's not just the contract renewal, it's
not just five-year of at least 7 billion per season, Ronaldo and Vieri's
figures. It's a commercial revolution, because Juventus has decided to
hire not only the feet (and the head, and the muscles) of the champion,
but also his image, his advertising value, his ability to get the screen,
not just the goalkeepers. A contract never seen, indeed. Until the year
2005, Alessandro Del Piero will play for Juventus in two ways: on the field,
trying to resume the cycle closed with Lippi, and outside, on the television
commercials, on the mag covers, on the outdoors, wherever there's the need
to get customers. The difference, regarding the regular contracts, is that
the image of the player will belong to the club, while up to now the two
aspects (sportive and commercial) reamined separated: the first one was
from the club, and the second, from the athlete. Seven billion plus x.
Where x is the number the bianconeri must disburse in order to clearly
guarantee the fantasista a gain for the image rights, and getting themselves
the publicitary profit, through an unknown contractual structure. And complex:
here because weeks are passing without the signature to come, however it's
about to happen. To buy the two parts of the champion, Juventus has decided
to create an independent advertising society (that will also take care
of their other soccer players' images, and of other athletes that are worth
the offers that the new agency the black-and-white society is creating
on the example of "McCormack"), guiding experiment for the Italian calcio.
A mechanism that has already been put in action for Esnaider and Henry,
that worked hard on their Juve performances (also the Argentinian, yes).
But for Del Piero, i'ts a billionaire deal. An investiment almost unavoidable:
between fifteen months the azurro will be released, and Juventus will lose
him for a free cost. Liberation from one side and knee accident from the
other limitate the contractual force of both: nobody, in this moment, can
exaggerate on the pretensions, not even make the time fly, specially the
society. In theory, the player is in less hurry than the board, but when
he's injured the commercial value comes down also for the phenomenon. For
the new kind of contract to have advantages, two elements are necessary:
certain and many money for Del Piero, otherwise he will take the ad rights
for himself, and a very high profit for the society, that obviously can't
trust the difference. "We'll make ourselves come out of ideas, we don't
lack imagination", says an important voice from Piazza Crimea, stressing
that Juventus in years Del Piero's non-sportive activities like the launch
of his own brand in Japan, or the conquest of the school related market:
gadget, VCRs and comic strips, with the invention of Alex, the famous strip
that tells the story of the unequalled one.
Del Piero's face is worth
a revolucionary idea like a contract coming in April: he is the world's
most popular Italian player and can be sold anywhere, the internacional
market as in the Sanremo Festival. Surveys showed that Alessandro Del Piero
is a character that reaches even those who are not fans, those who don't
like soccer.They can ignore the position of the bianconeri on the table,
not the vicissitudes of this boy who pleases everybody. Particularly that
he makes the people in advertising hungry.
And maybe it's a sign of
the times that the commercial value of the fantasista is in the center
of the contract negociations more than his medical report. Which, according
to the doctors, "proceeds in the previewed time". Aftert the recent control
visit to Colorado, and the boring physiotherapy in Turin, a third stage
has been reached, the one of the return to the pitch for the training.
From the gimnastics to the grass. For the one who had the knee in pieces
is a giant step. "I am fine, I am optimistic and I hope Juve gets to the
Champions League finals. And for that day, God knows...". To his friends,
Del Piero revealed his dream to the limit of the possible, if not the impossible:
the last act of the most important European competition is actually in
the project of May 26, in Barcelona, while the Juventus doctors confirm
that Del Piero will start again with the others in withdrawal, at the end
of July. However, if Manchester allows, the black-and-white captain will
be in Barcelona for sure, with a new contract and new commercials to shoot.
After having seen him dribbling in Florence of the 500 and showing his
biceps in a serie of modern and a bit alarming ads, after having followed
him become a virtual player (Alex, the puppet) with subtitles in Japanese,
after seeing him admired as a cartoon, let's wait for other special effects.
Waiting for the most special of all: Alessandro Del Piero who invents things
denied to the humans. But in the pitch. To win, not to sell.
.
