Fiorentina have hit back at Turin-based newspaper Tuttosport, following their suggestion that the sale of Federico Chiesa and Dusan Vlahovic helped fund the construction of the new Viola Park training centre. The two sides have a long-standing rivalry dating back to before the 90’s, and have often clashed on and off the pitch.
TuttoSport published a headline, shortly before the two teams meet in Florence this weekend, saying: “How beautiful Viola Park, it was paid for by Juve…”. The suggestion being that Fiorentina’s recent sales of both Chiesa and Vlahovic had helped in the funding for the new training centre.
Replying to the publication via the social media channels, Fiorentina released a statement saying:
“Putting money on the market by bringing its budget into the red by €127 million does not mean financing Italian football, but distorting it.
“Our president has always maintained that it is not right that clubs with a healthy balance sheet are at a disadvantage compared to Juventus (and they are not the only one) who buy players at exorbitant sums, pay very high wages and then present budgets that are blatantly at a loss.
“In our opinion, putting fictitious capital gains on the balance sheet, as emerged from the verdicts, is not, as Tuttosport claims, supporting the system.”
