Provincial football in crisis, Serie B and C lose 1.5 billion in five years
Between penalties, bankruptcies and defaults there are dozens of clubs in financial difficulty in a system that generates little revenue
3' min read
3' min read
To get an idea of the crisis that Italian football is going through, one should not so much look at the (empty) bench of the national team as at the financial agony in which numerous teams find themselves, especially those that are defined as 'provincial'. A label that once aimed to exalt the depth of the tricolour sports movement, while today more than anything else it highlights the absence of a catchment area and a brand suitable for generating resources adequate for the business of contemporary football.
In fact, clubs at the lower-middle end of the football pyramid are generally in the position of not producing revenues proportionate to their costs. The Lega Pro in the last five seasons has burned an average of 120 million per year. A loss for the 60 clubs exceeds 2 million. The 20 Serie B clubs travel with an average deficit of over 15 million per year. In the last five seasons surveyed by the Football Report of the FIGC, also due to the pandemic, the cumulative red of the 80 clubs in the two categories has been around 1.5 billion, contained only thanks to the contributions that arrive from the A league.
With the retreat of the national industrial system, the place of the historical patrons, who filled these structural deficits in exchange for political or social 'dividends', has been taken by foreign investors and funds, called upon to deal with asphyxiated tournaments on the revenue front, or to sports entrepreneurs, when not outright adventurers, inclined to tighten their purse strings at the first sign of trouble. The consequences of this almost anthropological transformation of ownership, coupled with unfavourable economic conditions and sterile reforms, are there for all to see: chain defaults, clubs cancelled due to administrative irregularities, competition fairness compromised, recourse to repechage and readmission, formal and ex post controls ineffective on economic soundness and share transfers.
C0so, while the usual rearguard battles to divide up the revenues generated by the 3 TVs broadcasting Serie A and the kick-off of the club's World Cup in the USA are taking place, Serie B 2024/25 has yet to conclude. Due to Brescia's penalty (and its disappearance), Sampdoria and Salernitana still have to play a play-off (20-25 June). A solution contested by the Campania players, with appeals to the federal justice system, who want the next cadet championship to be enlarged to 21 teams.
In the meantime, an appeal is being made in Serie C to find 60 suitable clubs to register and perhaps complete the year.
