Luciano Spalletti and Damian Comolli shake hands (juventus.com)
Juventus’ new CEO Damian Comolli talks about how he chooses his team’s manager, how he uses statistics to select players, and why he gave up on Turkish football. “There was too much politics.”
The 52-year-old French-Italian has been officially appointed as Juventus’ new CEO and gave some insight into his vision for the game when speaking at the Hudl Performance Insights conference.
His first job at the Bianconeri included the decision to sack Igor Tudor and bring in Luciano Spalletti, but what does he want from a coach?
“In the first meeting with the club, any coach will give a presentation and say everything is great, but once you start training they will say everything is bad,” Comolli pointed out.
“Now I’m including these phrases in the contract to remind the coaches of what they said. I explained in the meeting that this is our process and the data will guide player selection, set-pieces, injury prevention etc. If they accept that, that’s good. If not, we can shake hands and say goodbye.”
“The new manager has to accept this philosophy.”
Komori talks about a new vision for Juventus
Comolli worked at a number of clubs, including AS Monaco, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, Fenerbahce and FC Toulouse, before coming to Juve as director-general in June 2025.
“I spend 30 per cent of my time thinking about the culture of the club, because without culture you cannot achieve results. I asked Blaise Matuidi and David Trezeguet in particular what Juve’s DNA is. They all had the same answer: ‘Winning’.”
“The culture of a club is built from the ground up. We had a great meeting today to understand our culture. I said, ‘You guys decide who we are. I can only say a few things, but it starts from the ground up.'” Culture is the club’s values. ”
He makes no secret of his focus on data and statistical models to help select players and coaches and assist all areas of sport.
“I was hired by the Toulouse Redbirds to clean up the data. Juve knew I would arrive with data, because that was my model. The key to using data correctly is to have someone who can coordinate with the general manager and everyone below, act as a bridge, and speak the language of the coach. If that person is the coach and he is open to it, the bridge works.”
“In Toulouse, we measured the mental state of all our staff every day to see if they were feeling stressed or unwilling to come to work. This was very helpful, and we decided not to hire people who were not motivated.”
Although Komoli has worked in various countries, he has decided to step down, admitting that his time in Fenerbahçe was doomed to failure.
“I’ve been recruited by people in Japan, England, France and Italy, and if they ask me to lead their organization, it’s because they want my culture to be theirs. If you’re doing the same thing they were doing before, something is wrong.
“I have a lot of respect for the local culture, but in Turkey, for example, we couldn’t change it. There was too much politics. I realized it wasn’t going anywhere.”
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