Football, Serie A starts again with rising revenues and reduced losses

It is difficult to say whether Serie A and Italian football will ever be able to return to their former glory. The leadership of the Premier as far as clubs are concerned and of Spain, winner in Germany and at the Paris Games with its national teams (compared to our flops), seem unassailable for now.

However, as the top tricolour championship is about to begin again - with the matches between Genoa-Inter and Parma-Fiorentina on Saturday 17 August at 18.30 - a reading of the economic fundamentals reveals that the negative trend, aggravated by the pandemic crisis, has been reversed. On the one hand, the need to rebalance structural deficits has induced almost all clubs to correct their management models; on the other hand, on the field, the ability of Serie A teams to regain a certain competitiveness has allowed them to obtain significant sporting results that have supported their financial performance. The first place in the Uefa ranking that propelled five teams into the Champions League in the 2024/25 season is the perfect synthesis of this convergence of factors.

On the horizon for the Lega Serie A - which yesterday announced Iliad as its new Innovation & technology partner - there are now a few games that will have to be managed in the best possible way to continue riding this positive wave, such as the new governance to be given to the FIGC according to the indications of the Mulè amendment, proportioning the weights of the components to the economic contribution provided to the system (there is an assembly called for 4 November) and, above all, the construction of modern stadiums. In this sense, the coordination activity that the Minister for Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodi, is carrying out in order to prepare the dossier of the 5/6 facilities destined to host the Euro 2032 matches by the autumn of 2026, should be the opportunity to create a functional legal and financial platform to give the decisive impetus to the projects that are floundering in many cities among a thousand bureaucratic grids. This is Abodi's intention and the parallel work that the Lega di Serie A is carrying out with Andrea Cardinaletti's committee could act as a further impetus.

But what is the state of the art? The aggregate figures of the Figc's Football Report 2024 (produced with PwC and Arel) referring to the 2022/23 season indicate a clear trend of improvement in the accounts. During the pandemic, Serie A clubs also took advantage of some emergency measures introduced by the government for companies, such as the faculty to make revaluations (in particular of the brand) for 895 million, the suspension of amortisation for 163 million and the postponement of operating losses for about 1.3 billion. These are all costs that will have to be written off. That said, the value of production in Serie A grew by 23.6%, from 2.9 to 3.6 billion, with an increase in all structural items. Stadium revenues jumped by 88% to 410 million, thanks to an average of 29,731 spectators, which had not been reached for 23 years and which allowed them to surpass La Liga. Commercial revenues rose 34% to 770 million and TV revenues 21% to 1.4 billion, mainly due to participation in UEFA competitions. Capital gains rose again to 656 million (+21% compared to the previous season), but are far from the pre-Covid level of 835 million (2018/19 season). Labour costs, which had fallen by 8 in the 2021/22 season, were further trimmed by 1.6% to just under 1.9 billion. The amortisation of players' cards had already fallen by 16% in the 2021/22 season and was reduced by another 2% to 948 million. The ratio of costs attributable to registered personnel (wages of 1.7 billion and amortisation of 770) to structural revenues, without capital gains, fell from 107% to 85%.The edibta of Serie A, i.e. the indicator that takes into account operating income and expenditure, without taking into account interest, taxes and amortisation, in one year grew from 88 to 696 million (the average per club from 4.4 to 34.8 million) with an overall net result that went from a deficit of one billion to a red of 434 million.

Total debts in the same period dropped by 4%, from EUR 4.9 billion to EUR 4.7 billion. Not much. But the effort to reduce this ballast requires a further increase in revenue, if competitiveness is not to be jeopardised.