How Serie A teams can financially compete again
There was once a time when Serie A was one of the best leagues in the world and had the best players, and had teams that were winning European trophies. Fast forward to this past decade and many teams part of the “Seven Sisters” such as Fiorentina and Parma, have accumulated outstanding amounts of debt.
While there are teams like Juventus, Roma, and Napoli who are financially able to compete and remain at the highest level, many teams have faced a sharp decline. As a new TV deal is coming soon for Serie A, let’s look at the key contributors to why Serie A’s popularity has declined, and why teams are unable to compete with their European counterparts.
- Modernise their stadiums
Most Italian clubs currently don’t own their stadiums, and so are not really in control of the quality of maintenance of the stadium. At the moment, most Calcio A stadiums are outdated with pretty poor seats, no food provided and not the quite the experience you’d get if you were at a Bundesliga match. Most of the stadiums were built by the FIGC in the 80s for the world cup in 1990 with huge capacities and have not been renovated since. After the world cup, stadiums failed to be filled out, and the infrastructure quality continuously remained poor. For the clubs that currently own their own stadium, what they need to do is to make the match-day experience better. By doing so, this will increase the attendance at matches and encourage fans to come and watch the match live.
2. Develop a more attractive market
What makes the Premier League the most watched football league in the world is the fact that it’s thrilling throughout the whole game. The Italian game, on the other hand, is a slower pace than the English game and tends to have fewer goals than the Premier League. What makes the Premier League, La Liga, and the Bundesliga such popular leagues is that the football is exciting and tends to be more exciting for the average fan. Because of this, there isn’t as high of a demand for Calcio A football, which results in lower TV rights revenue for each club. Moreover, what attracts fans to certain teams is success, and the last Italian team to win the Champions League was Inter Milan back in 2010. Because fans know that the top 6 Premier League sides have the money to invest, they tend to support those teams, as those are fairly “safe emotional investments.” Furthermore, what doesn’t make Calcio A as attractive of a market as it was formerly is because many of the original “seven sisters” have continuously lost their best players and faced outstanding amounts of debt, making it increasingly difficult to maintain the same level of standard that they have in the past.
3. Poor connectivity to stadiums
Many clubs’ stadiums have no public transport near the stadium and as a result, it’s very inconvenient for travellers who take public transport to get to the match and discourages them from travelling for the match. Furthermore, after the match, the roads from the stadium towards the city centers are unsuitable as cars are all flooded into one road, resulting people only reaching back from the match after one or two hours. If there’s more connectivity around the stadium (which includes metro and bus stations), it’ll be more convenient for fan travel, which is an indirect factor of whether the stadium will be filled or not.
4. Ultra atmosphere
In the past 30 years or so, ultras have encountered many conflicts with the police, and as a result, there’s a lot of violence that’s occurred, discouraging non-ultra fans from going to the matches. The government has taken some action by implementing a “fan card”, which a way for authorities to track down troublemakers. However, the “fan card” hasn’t done much, and matches are only filled with ultras, and non-ultra fans are still discouraged to travel to the matches.
The Future
So what does the future hold for Serie A? As this season brings one of the tightest title races in years, many wonder whether the future for Serie A is bright. If the new TV deal brings more money than before than clubs will undoubtedly be able to compete in Europe and the league. What made the Serie A so special in the 90s was that most teams had quality players and played exceptional football, but economic recessions and debts has since hindered the possibility to restore that dream. As football fans, what we can hope for in the future is for the “Seven sisters” to return and for Serie A to go back to the level it once was.
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