Italian football ruled Europe in the decade after Italia 90 but the success dried up as clubs struggled to repay their building debts and their stadiums fell into disrepair. With clubs now rebuilding their homes, those glories could return
Milan president Silvio Berlusconi announced last month that the club would continue to share the San Siro stadium with their city rivals Internazionale and that the plans to build a new stadium in the Portello district of the city were being scrapped due to a disagreement over the land. The club’s sponsors, Fly Emirates, were going to provide financial backing for the 48,000-seat stadium but Berlusconi assured the press that he was too in love with the San Siro to leave.
In reality, this failure to modernise is a huge blow to a club whose matchday revenue dropped by 6% in the 2014-15 season. According to the Deloitte Football Money League, the €24.9m they earned through matchday revenue accounted for just 10% of their overall income. The authors concluded that “commercial revenue could prove critical to Milan’s future, with neither broadcast nor matchday sources likely to improve significantly in the short term.”
It was a similar story for city rivals Internazionale, who dropped to 17th in the Money League, their lowest ever position – despite their commercial revenue rising by 18%. Their attendances rose by 9% on average, but their matchday income decreased by 3%. A lack of European football for the first time in yearswas a contributing factor, but these figures are part of a wider problem for Serie A.
The fact that Italy has the second highest number of clubs in the Money League shows that, if clubs on the peninsula can maximise their matchday income, they will be able to narrow the gap significantly to other European clubs. Financial Fair Play rules make it important for clubs to maximise their income from the stadium to balance out their spending.
But why is Italy so far behind in this respect? The Italia 90 World Cup is remembered for many reasons, but 25 years later, many Italian clubs are still bound by the shackles of debt left behind from the stadium renovation programme. The overall cost of bringing their stadiums up to standard was 84% over budget. Funding was partially sourced from the Italian Olympic Committee, who insisted on installing athletics tracks in many of the grounds. This left ultras far from the pitch and has been a contentious issue ever since.
Potential matchday profits have also been hindered by the high rents paid to the local councils and the lack of a modern infrastructure to allow revenue to be generated through corporate channels. Without owning their stadiums, clubs also lack assets, making the type of foreign investment other European leagues have enjoyed far less likely.
Juventus have set the standard for the other Serie A clubs with the building of the Juventus Stadium on the site of the Stadio Delle Alpi in 2011. Their former stadium was detested by Juventus supporters and the fact that the Delle Alpilasted just 16 years before it was demolished shows how outdated the stadiums built for Italia 90 have become. The new arena made Juventus €41m last year and is one of only three owned by clubs in Serie A, along with Sassuolo’s Mapei Stadium and Udinese’s Stadio Friuli. The 41,000-capacity, environmentally sustainable stadium features a shopping centre, club museum and an array of corporate hospitality options that come under the umbrella of the Juventus Premium Club. Perhaps most importantly to the fans, the seats are much closer to the pitch, providing a universally unobstructed view.
Adam Digby, the author of Juventus: A history in black and white, says the love for the Juventus stadium among fans is unanimous. “After years of sharing the Olimpico with Torino or playing in the soulless Delle Alpi, the Juventus Stadium feels like home. It’s given a sense of belonging and because it’s small and full – therefore making tickets scarce – attending a game feels much more important than before when they were playing in front of a half-empty ground.”
While Adam wouldn’t credit the stadium with all of Juventus’s recent success, he recognises the importance of the complex in the long term. “The initial success was down to the impact of Antonio Conte and some incredible transfer business. However, it is essential in sustaining it, allowing Juve to slowly increase their wage bill to keep the best players and buy quality replacements for those who choose to move on. It’s difficult, because with the rest of Serie A so far behind, the perception of the league is difficult to overcome. Juventus can’t do it alone and need Italy’s other big clubs to join them in the modern era as soon as possible.”
Juventus aren’t the only club taking steps to modernise. Roma have announced plans to build a new 52,000-seater stadium in the Tor di Valle area of the city. They will leave the oversized Stadio Olimpico, which they share with Lazio, to relocate to a new ground modelled on the Colosseum. Roma chairman James Pallotta says the club need a new home if they are to keep up with the other giant clubs in Europe. “If we are going to consistently compete as a top club in the world we need a new stadium, a stadium that is privately owned by AS Roma.” The club say the stadium, which is due to be completed in time for the 2017-18 season, will contains the “finest premium seating in world football, including private luxury suites, loge boxes and club seats”. In a bid to satisfy the Roma ultras, they will include a 14,0000capacity section that replicates the old Curva Sud.
The realisation that the existing stadiums are holding back Serie A clubs has started to take hold and it is not just the most famous clubs that have put plans in place to modernise. Along with the revamp of Udinese’s Stadio Friuli, Torino recently laid the first brick in their new Filadelfia stadium, which is just a stone’s throw from their current ground at the Stadio Olimpico in Turin.
There is a long way to go for clubs in Italy to get their grounds on par with the European elite, and Italian bureaucracy can prove a stumbling block on the way to progress, as proved in the case of Berlusconi’s Milan. If you compare the Rossoneri’s €24.9m matchday income to that of fellow Emirates sponsored club Arsenal’s €119.8m per season, you can clearly see the gulf between the two. It is worth noting, however, that season tickets cost between £1,000 and £2,000 at the Emirates stadium – a pricing structure that would not be viable in Italy.
Despite this, if Italian clubs can continue to improve and even own their stadiums, freeing themselves from the oppressive cost of council stadium ownership, the league will begin to attract further investment. A return to European dominance of the late 1980s and 1990s could be on the cards.
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