Fabio Paratici confirms Juventus plan to keep Cristiano Ronaldo

Juventus director Fabio Paratici has confirmed the club plan to keep Cristiano Ronaldo for the 2021/22 season.

There had been rumours suggesting the Portugal legend may leave La Vecchia Signora at the end of this term. While he has picked up two Serie A titles with Juve since his move back in 2018, there will almost certainly be no third this season while they dropped out of the Champions League to Porto in extremely disappointing fashion.

The need to rebuild has been laid bare in the so far unsuccessful title defence, with Juve still ten points behind current leaders Inter following a shock 1-0 defeat to Benevento. There have also been questions asked of head coach Andrea Pirlo, but Paratici said the pair will continue to be central to their future plans.

He told Sky Sports as quoted by Football Italia: “We have a project that we started from last season, one game will not change our views or our strategy. This line continues and we are very happy with what we’ve done, so we’ll continue working to improve.

“This is Juve, we have Cristiano Ronaldo, the best player in the world, and we’re holding on tight.”

On the supposed rebuild, Paratici added: “I don’t believe the word ‘transitional’ exists at Juventus. We play every game aiming to win, some go better than others, but transition isn’t an issue here. Every year is important, even when it doesn’t necessarily have the same results as in the past.

“If we are just talking about results, there are clubs who had seven, eight or ten years of transition in which they didn’t win anything and didn’t really lay down any foundations either.

“People might not have realised because we kept winning, but we have already made numerous changes over the years, reduced the age of the squad several times to build future success."