Baldissoni: ‘Happy to keep Dzeko’

By Football Italia staff

Roma CEO Mauro Baldissoni is “very happy” to keep Edin Dzeko, but warns “since mid-December performances haven’t been in line with expectations".

The Giallorossi appeared to be on the verge of selling both Emerson Palmieri and their main striker to Chelsea, but in the end only the full-back went to Stamford Bridge.

“We’re at January 31 and Roma have sold one player, yesterday,” Baldissoni pointed out on Radio 24.

“That’s proof that we don’t need to do so, but we must do well to take advantage of opportunities

“Having acquired a club with previous debt and been sanctioned by FFP - even though the new owners had just arrived - we had two possible paths.

“We could cut everything back and try to grow in parallel with an increase in revenue, and imagine where we’d be then?

“The other way was to maintain costs and make up the shortfall with profits on players, and by doing so Roma have been able to maintain our competitiveness year after year.

“We’re almost always in the Champions League, and then if an unexpected bid arrives for a player like Dzeko which could be considered interesting we have to evaluate it and see how the money could be used to remain competitive.

“The offer must be taken into consideration. It’s clear that if we had to sell him we would have done, but we stuck to our asking price because it was an interesting opportunity.

“We’re very happy that Dzeko will stay, if he’d gone it would have been up to the sporting management to find other, equally competitive solutions.

“I’d like to point out that money doesn’t just go on transfer fees, but also renewals.

“From the summer to now there have been renewals for [Kevin] Strootman, [Radja] Nainggolan and [Kostas] Manolas, proving that we believe in the competitiveness of the team.

“Unfortunately, sometimes we need to correct the differential between costs and revenues with the sales and take them as an opportunity to improve.

“Some things aren’t working on the pitch and we need to better, but the team has proven to be competitive, as we expected, with first place in our Champions League group.

“Since mid-December the performances have not been in line with expectations, not only of the fans, but also ours, and there's work to be done on that front.

“The fans' disappointment is absolutely justified, their frustration is shared by us, we don’t blame them.”

Baldissoni was also asked if any deals will be done today.

“I don’t think we’ll do much, in the sense that a lad [Jonathan Silva] has arrived to complete his medical examinations and he’ll replace Emerson Palmieri. “We’ll complete that deal and the sporting director is always on alert on the last day, situations can always happen but there are no particular upheavals.

“It’s not necessary to make a sale, but you know that for some years teams haven’t been free to act according to their own strategies. “They have to deal with an international regulation which is also an Italian one, Financial Fair Play, which imposes restrictions on operations.

“Without being too technical, we need to achieve a balanced budget, costs must correspond to revenues or we’ll have to recover them in other ways. “I often hear that Roma need money, Roma don’t need money when there is a solid ownership which makes it available.

“In just the past 15 months the owners have spent €98m, and in 2014 another €100m.”

“Last season Roma failed to make it to the Champions League [group stages] and had a squad with costs for a competition of a certain level, with a subsequent drop in revenues. “That’s not helpful for the budgets, where the money the owners put in to cover losses don’t count. That was why FFP was born, to ensure limits could be imposed after the acquisitions of City and PSG.

“At the moment we are talking about a team that has surrendered Emerson Palmieri, but replaced him with Jonathan Silva who has played the Champions League and made the final of the Copa Libertadores.

“We did not weaken ourselves.”

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