Source Analysis - Gianluca Di Marzio
Verdict - Tier 1/2 for Italian news, Tier 3 otherwise
Transfer Track Source Analysis · July 30, 2024
Gianluca Di Marzio is considered to be one of the most reliable sources when it comes to transfer news relating to Italian clubs and players. When it comes to news outside of Italy, however, Di Marzio is considered relatively reliable, but makes quite a few mistakes and errors that damage his reputation.
Son of football agent Gianni Di Marzio, who helped bring Diego Maradona to Napoli, Gianluca entered football journalism as a reporter for Sky Sports Italia. Building relationships with players, agents, and clubs around Italy and Europe, Di Marzio is often the first to break transfer news relating to Italian clubs and players, whether on his Twitter page @DiMarzio or his website https://gianlucadimarzio.com/.
He also reports for the Italian transfer news outlet CalcioMercato, the reliability of which will be discussed in its own separate article.
Over the years, he has broken many exclusive stories related to Italian players or Italian clubs. He confirmed Cristiano Ronaldo's surprise move away from Real Madrid to Juventus, as well as Alexis Sanchez's signing for Inter Milan. He was the first to break Halkan Calhanoglu's transfer to Inter, and Atalanta's move for out-of-favor West Ham striker Gianlucca Scamacca. He does not only report on player transfers either – he broke the news of Tottenham Hotspur hiring Italian coach Antonio Conte back in 2021, as well as legendary coach Carlo Ancelotti’s shock move to manage Everton Football Club back in 2020.
His record of accurate reporting for Italian clubs and transfer news leads us to give him a Tier 1 ranking when it comes to news regarding Italian players, and ratings between Tier 1 and Tier 2 for various clubs in Serie A, depending on his record regarding the specific club. For example, we gave Di Marzio a tier 2 rating when it comes to reporting on Inter Milan, as he has often made links that could be considered questionable at best, like announcing that Luka Modric was interested in joining the Milan side back in 2018, but no move ever occurred.
However, when it comes to transfer news outside of Italy, Di Marzio has a far less stellar record. Although he does sometimes break important news accurately, such as his reporting on Chelsea’s move for Manchester City attacker Raheem Sterling in 2022, he makes a lot of big mistakes that hurt his reputation as a whole:
In 2021, Di Marzio reported that Chelsea was “almost done” with a 50 million euro deal for Sevilla defender Jules Kounde, who ended up not moving to Chelsea and later transferring to Barcelona in 2022.
In 2022, he announced that Adrien Rabiot and Juventus had reached a transfer agreement with Manchester United. The move, however, did not actually occur, and Rabiot would spend the next two years of his contract at Juventus until its expiry this summer.
Also in 2022, he claimed that Paris Saint-Germain backup goalkeeper Keylor Navas was on his way on a loan to Serie A club Napoli, instead of Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga. However, neither player ended up moving to Napoli, and Nava later ended up moving to the Premier League club Nottingham Forest.
Because of these errors and many more when it comes to reporting on foreign news, we rate Di Marzio as a Tier 3 when it comes to news outside of the Italian market.