Juventus Let Vlahovic Walk Then Paid €38 Million

Juventus let Dusan Vlahovic walk on a free in June, then paid Paris Saint-Germain €38 million to put Randal Kolo Muani in the No. 9 shirt. The Serbian wanted €8 million a year. The club would not go there, and by September he already has four Super Lig goals for Besiktas while the new No. 9 is still waiting for one in Serie A.

A €2 Million Gap Ended Four and a Half Years

Talks ended on June 3, 2026, one day after Vlahovic’s last conversation with then-chief executive Damien Comolli. His deal ran out on June 30. Giorgio Chiellini, Juventus’s director of football strategy, confirmed the split after a meeting with the Juventus Club Montecitorio and did not dress it up as a football decision.

He cared about Juve until the very end. He is a serious person. At these figures, Vlahovic will not remain in Italy; it is entirely legitimate for him to seek a different kind of salary.

Giorgio Chiellini, Director of Football Strategy, Juventus Club Montecitorio

The gap was €2 million on the base wage, plus the extras. Vlahovic wanted €8 million a year with fat commissions and a signing bonus. Comolli’s offer sat at €6 million plus bonuses and no wild add-ons. Letting the contract die was also a balance-sheet move, freeing more than €40 million once the remaining amortization came off the books, which is how the wage ceiling on the striker search was always going to be policed.

He arrived from Fiorentina in January 2022 for €70 million plus €10 million in bonuses, sold as the centre-forward who would follow Cristiano Ronaldo. He left with 168 appearances, 68 goals and 16 assists. Last season he scored 10 times in 23 club games after an adductor injury kept him out from December into March. When Luciano Spalletti had him fit, the manager started him, and Vlahovic scored four times in his last four league matches before the split.

We have sorely missed Vlahovic. You can’t play football without a player of his characteristics, without a strong, physical focal point who scores goals.

Luciano Spalletti, Juventus manager, after beating Lecce

Spalletti still wanted him. The board did not match the wage. A later one-year package worth up to €8 million including bonuses still failed to close it. Chiellini’s forecast held: Vlahovic did not stay in Italy.

Chiellini Closed the Door in June

From the club’s side the math was simple. Keep him at €8 million and he remains at the top of the pay list. Cut him loose and the next No. 9 has to live under a tighter cap. That is €38 million plus €12 million in add-ons of transfer cost to install a player on just over €5 million net, which is the trade Juventus accepted.

THE WAGE AND FEE LEDGER

The original outlay in 2022 still sits on the other side of that table. Juventus spent €70 million plus bonuses to buy him, then got nothing back on the fee when the wage talks died. Besiktas posted a guaranteed €7.5 million a season to Borsa Istanbul and did not pay a transfer fee at all.

Kolo Muani Takes the No. 9 for €38 Million

Juventus announced the permanent return on August 2, 2026. The club’s own note recorded 22 appearances and ten goals plus three assists from his 2025 loan, then 41 appearances at Tottenham last season. He is 27. The contract runs through 2031. Transfer reporter Fabrizio Romano put the wage just over €5 million net, which is the figure that made the deal fit the cap Vlahovic would not accept.

THE DEAL JUVENTUS ACTUALLY SIGNED

• The fee: €38 million ($43.8 million) fixed, with €12 million in add-ons, paid to PSG on a permanent deal, not a loan.
• The loan tape: 10 goals and 3 assists in 22 games in early 2025, then 1 Premier League goal in 30 matches at Tottenham.
• The shirt: He took Vlahovic’s number on day one, and the club sold the no.9 shirt from the club shop the same afternoon.

January already told the story of how badly Turin wanted him back. Juventus tried to reunite during that window and Tottenham would not cut the loan. PSG, with the player outside Luis Enrique’s plans, proved easier in the summer. Kerim Alajbegovic arrived from Bayer Leverkusen on the same day, a wide option around the new centre-forward rather than a second No. 9.

Nick Woltemade is on the UEFA Europa League list as another forward body. Jonathan David is no longer the answer Spalletti wanted down the middle. The Frenchman who did come back is the one wearing 9, and he started the 1-1 draw with Milan on September 6, 2026, when Federico Gatti’s late header rescued a point after Alphadjo Cisse had scored.

Why Mateta Never Reached Turin

Jean-Philippe Mateta was the other name in the June shortlist, the physical striker Spalletti could have used next to, or instead of, Kolo Muani. He is still at Crystal Palace. Palace had already triggered a one-year extension, and an independent Premier League panel left that extra year in force. FIFA then said the fight was not its case to hear.

Aston Villa made a bid in late August that sat well under Palace’s price, which had been in the region of the €30 million Milan once tabled. Juventus floated the idea again only if David left. He did not leave in a way that opened a Mateta deal, and the window shut with the Palace centre-forward still in south London. Mauro Icardi, another deputy on some June lists, never arrived either. The French pair from that first shopping note became one signing, one stay-put, and a free-agent Serb in Istanbul.

Besiktas Put €7.5 Million on the Exchange

Besiktas Futbol Yatirimlari told Borsa Istanbul on August 13, 2026, that it had signed Vlahovic for three seasons, from 2026/27 through 2028/29, on a guaranteed €7.5 million each football season. He had landed the night before, told the crowd “We want to be champions,” and walked into a reunion with Vincenzo Italiano, the coach who had him at Fiorentina in 2021.

That guaranteed wage is €500,000 below the base he asked of Juventus and €1.5 million above the €6 million Turin put on the table. He did not need a European giant to get close to his number. He needed a club that would pay it. Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Tottenham were all named around him in June and none took him. Chiellini had already said the Italian market would not.

WHO LEFT WITH WHAT

• Juventus: Kept the cap, paid PSG €38 million, filled the 9, and entered the Europa League rather than the Champions League.
• Vlahovic: Left on a free, signed €7.5 million a year for three seasons, and went straight into Italiano’s team.
• Paris Saint-Germain: Sold a forward who had been loaned out for a year and a half and banked a fixed €38 million.
• Crystal Palace: Held Mateta after the tribunal and after Villa’s low bid.

Leandro Trossard, signed from Arsenal in July, is the other established attacker in that Besiktas forward line. The Turkish club did not buy a project. It bought a 26-year-old who had already scored 68 times in Serie A’s hardest shirt and was available because Turin would not pay him €8 million.

Four Super Lig Goals and a Silent Allianz

Vlahovic’s first Super Lig start was August 31, 2026, against Corum. Besiktas won 6-2. He scored from the spot in the 43rd minute, added another in the 59th, and finished the hat-trick in the 66th. After the match he said the team had deserved the win and wanted more. Four days later, on September 5, he scored the 73rd-minute winner in a 2-1 derby at Fenerbahce, from Orkun Kokcu, after Milan Skriniar had opened and Ridvan Yilmaz had equalised. That is four Super Lig goals in two appearances.

THE HANOVER OF THE NO. 9

1. June 2, 2026: Vlahovic’s last call with Comolli ends without a deal.
2. June 3, 2026: Juventus and the player cut off renewal talks.
3. June 30, 2026: The contract expires and he leaves on a free.
4. August 2, 2026: Kolo Muani signs permanently and takes the 9.
5. August 13, 2026: Besiktas files the three-year, €7.5 million deal.
6. August 31, 2026: Vlahovic scores a hat-trick in a 6-2 win over Corum.
7. September 5, 2026: He scores the 73rd-minute winner at Fenerbahce.
8. September 6, 2026: Kolo Muani starts the 1-1 with Milan and still has no Serie A goal.

Kolo Muani has three Serie A starts without a goal. Spalletti’s side won its first two league matches, then needed Gatti’s header against Milan. In the box that night the new No. 9 was crowded out. The Allianz did not wait for a ten-game sample. The comparison was already being made in the stands, because the man who used to wear that shirt had just won an Istanbul derby and the man in it had not scored.

That is a small sample, and it is also the sample Juventus chose when it decided a transfer fee plus €5 million net was cleaner than €8 million for a striker it already employed. Kolo Muani’s 2025 loan is the tape the club is betting on. The Tottenham year is the tape it is asking supporters to forget.

Vlahovic Says the Renewal Talks Never Happened

On September 3, 2026, Vlahovic sat down with Mozzart Sport and rejected the version of the story in which he spent three years blocking a renewal. He said there were never concrete contract talks, only comments about maybe sitting down later, and that he spoke to Comolli only at the end of the season. The last contact, he said, was June 2. There has been none since.

He also said he started last season on the bench because he was in the final year of his deal, not because two new forwards had arrived, and that the long injury then wiped out the run he had going under Spalletti. He thanked the manager for wanting him to stay. He called it an honour to wear the shirt and said he was sorry the team had not been at the level a club with 38 league titles demands. He did not rule out a return. “In football, as in life, anything can happen,” he said, and added that he would not close any door.

He chose Besiktas, he said, because the president and sporting director came to Belgrade and stayed. “In life it is important to go where they want you most.” Juventus visit Sassuolo on September 13. Kolo Muani is the No. 9 on the Europa League list. The previous one already has four Super Lig goals and a three-year contract written into a stock-exchange filing.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Dusan Vlahovic join Juventus from Fiorentina?

He signed on January 28, 2022, his 22nd birthday, on a four-and-a-half-year contract. The fee was €70 million plus €10 million in bonuses, which at the time was the most expensive winter deal in Serie A.

What shirt number does Vlahovic wear at Besiktas?

He was presented in the 28 shirt after the August 13 signing, a clean break from the Juventus 9 that Kolo Muani took the same month. The number was confirmed around the KAP filing and the welcome ceremony at Tupras Stadyumu.

How many Premier League goals did Kolo Muani score at Tottenham?

He scored once in 30 Premier League matches during the 2025/26 loan, a year that also produced 41 appearances in all competitions and ended with him left out of Didier Deschamps’s World Cup squad.

Did Jean-Philippe Mateta leave Crystal Palace in 2026?

No. He stayed after a Premier League tribunal upheld Palace’s one-year extension and after FIFA declined to hear a follow-up claim, so Juventus’s June interest never became a transfer.