Agnelli: Italy lagging behind

By Football Italia staff

Juventus President Andrea Agnelli has declared that Italian football is lagging behind its continental rivals.

The club today announced a record turnover of over €300m, but Agnelli believes Italian clubs are failing to compete with those in England, Spain and Germany.

“Is everything ok then?” Agnelli pondered after pinpointing the Premier League as an example to follow to club shareholders.

“No. All you have to do is look at the situation in Italian football with a minimum of detachment and without partisanship to recognise a progressive decline.

“Someone in the establishment tried to argue that, since Italy as a whole has lost ground in every other sector, then the growth of our industry [football] - albeit lower than other countries - should reassure us.

“This is not the case, because the growth is linked exclusively to the evolution of the television market.

“Less than 20 years ago, England, Spain and Germany looked to Italy as an example. Today we have been overtaken in every respect - revenue, sustainability of businesses, sporting results, filling stadiums and UEFA ranking.

“Today we’re struggling to defend fourth [in the UEFA coefficient] from Portugal.”

The Bianconeri President hailed the club’s return to the top 10 clubs in Europe in terms of turnover, but warned Italian clubs are limited structurally.

“The level of turnover that we’re presenting today confirms Juventus as one of the top 10 clubs in the world, and our UEFA ranking has improved.

“However, our competitors - Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Barcelona - have significantly outdistanced us.

“No Italian club has been able to grow at their pace, a clear sign of the structural limitations that plague our football.”

Agnelli called on other Serie A clubs to follow the example being set by Juventus, as he sees Italian football falling further and further behind.

“Only 10 years ago, matchdays in Serie A and the Bundesliga generated the same revenue, slightly less than those in La Liga and a third of the revenues in the Premier League.

“We were already a tortoise - today we are a shrimp.

“The Bundesliga and La Liga now generate twice the revenues of our football stadiums, which this year fell below €200m - of which one fifth, 20 per cent was generated by Juventus Stadium.

“The latter remains the only example of a cutting-edge facility [in Italy], but it only represents 1/20th of the total product. It’s not enough.

“Football is about the fans, but the fans and families have abandoned Italian stadiums. Some people blame increased television availability, which is a strange argument, because without TV money Italian football would have died a slow death.

“It still will, if clubs don’t take up a double challenge.

“Domestically, we need to get fans back into popular stadiums. Juventus, thanks to Juventus Stadium has reached a point where we’re at 95 per cent capacity - it’s news when a game doesn’tsell out. The rest of Serie A is constantly below 50 per cent, and falling.

“And then there’s abroad. Italian football has disappeared from the television screens of the big Western markets without getting into new markets.

“Juventus are trying to recover lost ground. Tours and social media give us new capabilities and new markets that will allow us to grow revenues.

“But Juventus will only grow fractionally if the collective product that is Serie A doesn’t do the same.

“Many years ago a book by Simon Kuper called ‘Football Against The Enemy’ was released.

“The author wrote: ‘When the English football fan seeks a better life, he goes to Italy, where he’ll find the world’s best players, games broadcast in full on television and lots of sports papers. The weather is also good’.

“This was Serie A for the English 20 years ago.

“I’m not saying this out of nostalgia. I’m saying this with the ambition that Serie A goes back to being thepoint of reference.”

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