The governance of Italian football changes. Gravina reform passes

"Serie A is doing a defensive battle, for too many years Serie A has been mortified. The League,' explained president Lorenzo Casini in his address to the assembly, 'believes that the regulations do not correspond to the weights. That is why, as a precautionary measure, it has filed an appeal. We have submitted a proposal to amend the statute based on the federal president's proposal: it follows it 80%. In the federal proposal there is wording that speaks of matters that concern Serie A 'exclusively'. The risk is that it will be enough for the FIGC council to approve a rule concerning the three professional leagues in order not to be able to exercise the power of agreement. We ask that the term 'exclusively' be removed'. On the issue of electoral weights, Casini recalled that "in the documents presented there was always talk of a quota, for Serie A, at 20% with 5 councillors: in the proposal there is instead 18% and 4 councillors. That's why Serie A did not consider the proposal sufficient'. On the right of agreement, Casini, pointed out that it would have been better in the case of a lack of agreement that it could have gone to the Coni council, a third body. "The formulation that has been reached constitutes instead a cross-veto in which Serie A cannot be subject to decisions on things that concern it, but at the same time, if there is no favourable vote from the others on a proposal, there is no change'.

'The precautionary appeal against this assembly held under the old rules has been filed, now we will hold a meeting to decide the next steps. This resolution must also be challenged, we'll talk about it,' Casini added after the vote. 'On the one hand it remains a lost opportunity, but on the other if we ask anyone to see a Serie A with an extra councillor and a right of veto no one would have believed it. Little was needed to come together and improve Italian football. Serie A has not been listened to. Parliament and the government intervened on issues on which they had already intervened, because the 30 per cent for players and coaches on the board is set by a state law. So the intervention certainly accelerated this process that Serie A had been asking for a long time'.

'What personally displeases me as a manager,' said Inter president Beppe Marotta, 'is this area of conflict that also leads to personalisms that absolutely must be eliminated. Then, it is clear, dialectical confrontation leads to the fact that positions must be conquered, but it must be done within the arc of respectful negotiation of all. So I hope that we will go ahead, stressing however that the big problem in our opinion is the little consideration we have for politics, for the government, because they should realise that they are already working positively, but we still need to do more, the confrontation must be a more direct confrontation because the world of sport, the world of football in particular, really represent a great heritage of our nation'.

'How do the abstainers compare to the opponents? Well, this is still a bit to be examined,' added Marotta, 'but the intention was not to express dissent against Gravina's proposal, but rather a discourse in which there is an open debate within our Serie A that must be addressed, positions must be taken, as I said before, of non-belligerence towards the Federation, a confrontation that is frank and constructive for both parties.

'We welcome the arrival of the second councillor for the Lega B, in recent years we have focused a lot on the valorisation of young players and our contribution to the treasury has also grown, even if we are not experiencing a positive moment as Italian football,' clarified Lega B president Mauro Balata at the end of the Assembly, which saw the unanimous vote of all the clubs in the Cadetteria. - On the growth and enhancement of young players there have been 'great sacrifices of the clubs that I thank we have shifted all the available resources of the minutes towards young Italians giving a great contribution to the other leagues as well. The youngsters who go down to the Lega Pro receive an important contribution in terms of salary payments, we have also made an important contribution towards Serie A. Our revenues have grown, even though Italian football is going through a period of contraction'.

"We are the component that has decided and accepted to give the biggest contribution to review the federal structure," said Matteo Marani, president of the Lega Pro, "It was a suffered decision matured over the last few months to help everyone get out of a wrong logic, which is that of only looking at one's own garden. I have followed Serie A for thirty years and we have to move forward together. Too much individualism and too many crusades have sunk football to a pitiful point. We are out of two consecutive World Cups and we were eliminated by Switzerland at the last European, they used to be our sparring partner. No one goes to a World Cup and the decline is for everyone. Instead of having a serious debate about the needs of the future, focusing on economic sustainability, the future of young people and infrastructure, we reason on the strength of the number of councillors or voters.

"In the past there were Lega Serie A presidents who respected the other components, respect that is no longer there. President Casini did not point out that in the amendment presented at the last moment, 10% of voters and two councillors are removed, without even communicating this," explained Giancarlo Abete, president of the Lnd, "If this is the way to respect the components we are not there. I will ask the federal president to send this amendment to Uefa and Fifa to see if the current rules will be respected. Until there is a different scenario we are not in. We are not willing to give up even 0.1 per cent of our 34 per cent, which is the lowest share in Europe. In the Lega Serie A proposal we speak of a League that is the engine of the system and cannot have a much lower weight than those who play football for fun. Decree 36 provides for employment contracts for those who play football, clearly they are poor contracts but they are over 30,000 contracts. Work applies to everyone, they are workers and deserve respect'.