The Italian league's inability to compete financially is all too clear, with the world's top earners no longer considering the campionato as a viable option
The Serie A pay figures published in La Gazzetta dello Sport on Monday are revealing only in their confirmation of what is already clear. Italian football’s decline from its position as one of the game’s superpowers continues apace, with the lack of financial muscle in the game on the peninsula leaving calcioflagging up against the pulling power of thriving rival leagues all across the world.
Four years ago, the game in Italy was already struggling. Three years on from Calciopoli, the stench of mistrust in Italian club football was apparent all across Europe but it hadn’t yet set in to such an extent that the game was on its knees.
That season Inter would go on to win an unprecedented treble, clinching the Champions League with a squad led by the likes of Samuel Eto’o and Wesley Sneijder, two players brought in for big money after the sale of the league’s top earner, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, to Barcelona.
But now the rot is setting in. Even Juventus, the reigning champions and the only club in Serie A who own their own stadium, have insisted that expectations need to be managed correctly. After elimination from last season’s Champions League at the hands of eventual winners Bayern Munich, many on the peninsula suggested the Bianconeri were close to challenging on the continent.
However, coach Antonio Conte was quick to dampen such talk, claiming Juve remain “light years” behind Europe’s best and that Italian football is in drastic need of reform. And only this week, Giuseppe Marotta, the club’s director-general, asked for Uefa to step in and help calcio to compete at the top table once more.
“The varying tax regimes in other countries are penalising Italian football,” claimed Marotta. “These need to be harmonised because otherwise they create disparity, which is why I hope Uefa intervene.”
It is unlikely that Uefa will see it the same way, especially given this is largely a problem brought on by Italian football itself. The inability to challenge has come about thanks in part to Italy’s previous reliance on self-made millionaire owners in place of any long-term structure built around sustainable revenue streams.
With avenues for income having been trimmed back so far over the last few years, it is the Italian game’s capacity to attract the game’s big-hitters which is being harmed the most. Yes, calcio continues to show a magnificent knack of attracting unpolished gems for reasonably small fees – low earners Paul Pogba and Juan Cuadrado being amongst the most obvious examples – but there is a significant lack of star attraction.
And until the trend is bucked, allowing Italian clubs to lure in neutral fans from all over the world with big name blockbuster signings, there will remain a shortfall between the clubs’ transfer dreams and the stark reality.
