Despite delay, Juventus have not given up on signing Cristiano Giuntoli

It has now been a few weeks since we heard that Juventus and current Napoli sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli came to terms on a deal to bring him to Turin. The road block, however, is still very much there in the form of Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis, who has no intention of letting one of the best directors Serie A has to offer go to a direct rival.

We’ve heard that Giuntoli wants to leave Napoli as soon as he can — which has obviously yet to happen.

But as much as De Laurentiis is hung up on not letting the man who put together the squad that just won the Scudetto head off to Juventus, there’s still very much confidence something can happen — it just might take a little while longer.

According to SportItalia’s Alfredo Pedulla, Giuntoli is still very much set on officially joining Juventus this summer, but there’s a catch — De Laurentiis wants to hold off on any kind of potential negotiations with the Bianconeri until Napoli hire a new manager after Luciano Spalletti’s departure to go on sabbatical. The hope, at least from Juve and Giuntoli’s point of view, is that there’s some sort of resolution found by the end of the month despite the fact that business is still potentially being taken care of by others in Turin. Pedulla suggests that resigning from his position at Napoli is still possible for Giuntoli, but 

While I don’t exactly enjoy waiting on Aurelio De Laurentiis to be the one to determine the terms on things, this does very much make sense from his point of view. No matter if Giuntoli leaves this summer or ends up seeing out the final year of his contract because he can’t find some sort of resolution with Napoli, the simple fact that De Laurentiis wants a manager in place before entertaining the idea of hiring a new sporting director does make sense. It doesn’t help with Juventus’ summer plans, but it does make sense.

That doesn’t help the immediate future, though. That means things have basically fallen to the hands of Giovanni Manna, who has essentially taken over the day-to-day operations of Juventus’ summer mercato while the club waits for some kind of resolution on the Giuntoli front. Just how long that lasts is very much an open-ended kind of deal simply because there is no end date — Napoli still has no manager and there’s still negotiations to have with De Laurentiis, who we know is not going to relinquish Giuntoli’s services without a serious fight.

So maybe the end of June is the new “date” to target for Giuntoli being freed from De Laurentiis’ grasp and his move to Juventus can actually happen. But until then, it’s Manna’s show and there’s not really anybody else capable of doing so until Giuntoli walks through those doors at Continassa with his Ray-Bans on and a smile on his face because he’s about to start a new job.