Roma Owners Freeze Star Contract Renewals, Plan Radical Changes End of Season
The management of Italian club AS Roma, led by the Friedkin Group, has announced the freezing of contract renewal negotiations for several key players, most notably Gianluca Mancini and Bryan Cristante. This firm decision follows the club's recent defeat in Milan and reflects the ownership's dissatisfaction with the current squad's declining competitiveness.
The management clarified that the team is no longer capable of competing to achieve its previously set objectives, especially after recording its eleventh defeat in Serie A and fifteenth across all competitions this season.
In this context, the club owners affirmed that "the team is not competitive, at least for the objectives that have been set," which paves the way for a plan aimed at implementing a radical and clear change in the core elements of the squad by next summer.
Meanwhile, coach Gian Piero Gasperini stressed the importance of maintaining the current squad, warning against hasty evaluations. He stated: "This team possesses very solid values and a strong foundation. I've heard some criticisms about this group, saying the most it can achieve is fifth or sixth place, but be careful, without these players, the ranking could easily drop to twelfth or thirteenth."
These technical shifts are emerging despite significant financial investments from the Friedkin Group, which amounted to 96.5 million euros between last summer and January, with spending projected to reach 121.5 million euros by June.
In addition to Mancini and Cristante, the contracts of Lorenzo Pellegrini, Paulo Dybala, Zeki Celik, and Stephan El Shaarawy remain pending without discussion amidst the club's exits from both the Coppa Italia and the Europa League competitions.
