Fiorentina owner Rocco Commisso has said the club will not try to stop talisman Federico Chiesa should he decide to join Juventus.
"Chiesa must decide and, if he wants to leave, I won't stand in his way, as long as the amount is right ... If he wants to go to Juve, there are no vetoes for certain clubs," Commisso claimed.
Chiesa is the latest homegrown talent to take La Viola by storm and, like Federico Bernardeschi before him, supporters have placed their hopes for success on his young shoulders. In 27 games this season, playing both at center forward and on the right wing, Chiesa has scored seven goals and provided five assists. Since his debut season in 2016-17, the 22-year-old has totaled 29 goals and 20 assists in 139 games.
|N | Ladies and gentleman, Federico Chiesa #ForzaViola pic.twitter.com/RMB9VM3j3O
— ACF Fiorentina (@acffiorentina) October 8, 2019
Commisso's announcement will not go down well with Fiorentina supporters, who will be loath to lose another star talent to one of the club's biggest foes. Despite being separated by nearly 250 miles, the two clubs maintain a heated rivalry stretching back decades.
The sides came up against one another in the 1989-90 UEFA Cup Final, which Juventus won 3-1. La Viola and its supporters felt cheated after a Juventus goal stood despite a push on the defender in the buildup.
Not long after, to add insult to injury, the Turin giants swooped in and poached Fiorentina's best player, Roberto Baggio. Baggio was one of the most sought-after young talents in Europe at the time, having scored 17 goals in Serie A that season and finishing eighth in voting for the Ballon D'or.
Baggio's move for what was at the time a world-record transfer fee saw riots erupt in the streets of Florence. The ultras threw molotov cocktails and bricks as they made their way to the club headquarters and set up camp, ultimately forcing president Flavio Pontello to seek refuge inside the stadium. The transfer proved to be the catalyst for Pontello's sale of the club as supporters were fed up with his decision to sell several key players.
In the summer of 2017, Bernardeschi broke Fiorentina hearts when he moved to Juventus on a $44.5 million deal. Having been with the club since the age of nine, he scored 23 goals and assisted 12 more before, in the eyes of the supporters, he turned traitor. Like Baggio before him, Bernardeschi had worn the famous No. 10 jersey and represented the club's hopes of long-term success.
That summer, similar to when Baggio was sold, the owners were looking to sell off several important players and get the club off of their hands. When Bernardeschi rejected a contract extension and spoke of how he would be happy to move to Juventus, he was greeted with a banner outside the Stadio Artemio Franchi which read "Who wouldn't like to spit in your face, Bernardeschi you shitty hunchback."
Needless to say, the bad blood still runs strong between these two. Fiorentina will no doubt try to lean on Chiesa's relationship with the club to keep him around, though that approach failed to win over Bernardeschi. Chiesa's father Enrico spent three seasons with La Viola and, after starting his youth career with nearby U.S. Settignanese, Chiesa has been with Fiorentina since 2007.
