Juventus have confirmed the mutual termination of a midfielder’s contract that will cost the club roughly €6m on the balance sheet, closing out one of the most expensive underperforming deals in the club’s recent history.
The Bianconeri announced the agreement on Friday, with the club’s official statement spelling out the financial hit in plain terms.
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“This operation generates a negative economic impact of approximately €6m as a result of adjusting the net book value of the player’s right to sporting services,” Juventus said, before wishing the player well on X.
Former Lierpool man Arthur Melo, who arrived in Turin six years ago, leaves having barely featured for most of that time.
Arthur joined Juventus from Barcelona in the summer of 2020 in the player-plus-cash swap that sent Miralem Pjanic the other way, a deal both clubs used to book accounting gains at the time.
What followed was six years of almost total absence from the pitch.
He made 63 appearances in all competitions for Juventus, scored once, and hasn’t played a competitive match for the club since the 2021-22 season.
Instead, he was shuffled out on loan repeatedly.
Liverpool took him for the 2022-23 season, where he made just a single Premier League substitute appearance before injury effectively ended the spell.
Fiorentina, Girona, and most recently Gremio followed.
None of those clubs made the move permanent.
His final season away brought 23 appearances for Gremio, one goal and two assists, before he returned to a Juventus squad that had no place for him.
The numbers behind the deal are the real story.
Amortisation on Arthur’s registration had accumulated to roughly €65m on Juventus’ books by the time of Friday’s termination.
His original contract, which ran to 2027, was extended along the way specifically to spread the annual amortisation charge and avoid booking heavy losses before the club could offload or release him.
On wages, Arthur earned around €12m gross per season during his first three years in Turin, the maximum initial salary on offer.
He later accepted restructured terms to make loan moves easier, and the host clubs covered portions of his salary during those spells, with Italy’s Decreto Crescita tax relief softening the blow further in the early years.
Even so, the total gross wages actually borne by Juventus sit somewhere between €32m and €35m.
Divide that against 63 appearances and you get a figure of over €1.5m per game.
That’s the arithmetic that pushed Juventus to negotiate the termination Arthur himself requested, clearing the last of his salary off the wage bill as the club looks to complete further business before the window shuts.
È ufficiale la risoluzione consensuale di contratto per Arthur.
Buona fortuna per il futuro! pic.twitter.com/iiFZLMV6we
— JuventusFC (@juventusfc) August 21, 2026