AS Rome announced Thursday morning that an agreement had been reached between its American owner James Pallotta and Dan Friedkin, another American businessman, around the sale of the club for an amount of almost 600 million euros. “AS Roma confirms that an agreement was reached last night between AS Roma SPV LLC, majority shareholder of AS Roma SpA, and the Friedkin Group for the sale of the club. The contracts were signed Wednesday evening, ”writes the club from the Italian capital in a press release.
"The operation is valued at around 591 million euros", continues the club giallorosso. The final sales agreement must be signed before the end of August. Roma had been chaired by American businessman James Pallotta since 2012. Since 2014, he had owned the club 100%. New owner Dan Friedkin is 54 years old and his business is based in Houston, Texas. He is at the head of a holding grouping together a dozen companies and he is particularly active in the sale of automobiles and hotels. According to Forbes, his fortune is estimated at just over four billion dollars (3.6 billion euros), which would make him the 504th richest man in the world.
“We are all happy within the Friedkin Group to have done what it takes to join this iconic club and city. We look forward to completing the purchase and immersing ourselves in the AS Roma family, ”Friedkin said, quoted in the Roma statement. For his part, James Pallotta said he was certain that Dan Friedkin and his son Ryan would be "future great owners for Roma". Based in Boston and present very occasionally in Rome, Pallotta was very unpopular with the club's tifosi.
No stadium
AS Roma did not win anything under his presidency, many valuable players (Salah, Alisson, Marquinhos, Nainggolan ...) were sold to put the accounts in order and the two legends of the club, Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi, were pushed towards the exit. Roma are indeed a club that experiences recurring economic difficulties and which have already been sanctioned by UEFA for breaches of financial fair play.
The club is therefore very active in the transfer market, regularly selling its best players, to the chagrin of the tifosi who regularly challenged the management of the club. Pallotta has also helped modernize Roma and “Americanized” them, bringing working methods and staff from across the Atlantic to all levels of the club. At the time when Rudi Garcia was the club's coach, he even imposed - without much success - physical trainers from the United States.
Pallotta's great project was the construction of a new “property” stadium in the south of Rome. Launched in 2012 but regularly delayed for legal and bureaucratic issues, the project is currently at a standstill and work has not started. The biggest moment of his presidency will remain the Champions League semi-final lost in 2018 against Liverpool. In the quarter-finals, the Romans had achieved an extraordinary feat in a boiling Olympic Stadium, beating Barcelona 3-0 after a 4-1 loss in the first leg. This season, Roma finished 5th in the Italian championship, and they must play this Thursday in the knockout stages of the Europa League against Sevilla.
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