UEFA Report On Finances Makes For Worrying Reading For Italian Football

UEFA Report On Finances Makes For Worrying Reading For Italian Football
15:20, 22 Jan 2018

Wading through UEFA’s club licensing benchmark document is no easy task at 132 pages. However, even a quick glance at financial statistics relating to Serie A clubs provides worrying readying for fans of Italian football, with the league as a whole lagging behind many of Europe’s other top 5 divisions and being caught up by others in the top 20.

While other countries are modernising and making the most of available revenue, Italian football needs a major overhaul if its clubs wish to continue to be successful in European competition. For starters, 11 total European clubs achieved a total spectator figure of 1 million during 2016/17. There were representatives from La Liga, the Premier League, Bundesliga and the Scottish Premier League but not one Italian side achieved this figure.

The closest to that mark was Inter with a total of 885,888, the Nerazzurri short of the target by just over two times the capacity of their San Siro home. The following is a short guide to areas in that document where Italian football is lagging behind.

Shirt Sponsorship

Italian teams charge the 3rd highest prices of the 20 European clubs detailed in the report for replica shirts with an average cost of €79. Only Switzerland (€87) and Germany (€80) were found to be asking a higher price from supporters in 2017/18.10% of Serie A clubs are currently without a main shirt sponsor, whereas all clubs in Germany, England and France are paid for featuring a company on the front of theirs.

17 clubs in each of the aforementioned three leagues also have a sleeve sponsor, but shockingly enough not one Italian team benefits from this. To put this in perspective, 14 teams from the Netherlands, 13 from Belgium, 13 from Spain and Portugal, 12 from Russia, 11 from Turkey, nine from Austria, seven from Switzerland and six from Ukraine have company logos on shirt sleeves, showing just how quickly other countries are catching up.

TV Revenue

Income from televised games provides an average of 51% of the finance generated by Serie A sides, which on first glance sounds like a respectable figure. However, this high percentage is largely due to the fact these teams don’t make the most of other income streams as highlighted by a similar figure in La Liga.

Spanish teams generated a club average of €46.8 million of TV money last year, just €3.9 million less than their Italian counterparts. However that fee only made up 37% of the La Liga sides’ total income, in comparison to 51% on the peninsula.

Stadium profits

It remains well-known that the majority of Serie A teams are not able to make a significant amount of matchday profit as their stadiums are council-owned. Indeed, the only three sides able to boast owning their own homes are Juventus, Sassuolo and Udinese, the three that have profited from stadium naming rights. Only Greece has less teams able to do so, with 14 Bundesliga teams having sold these rights to the highest bidder.

Only Greece, Norway and Sweden joined Italy in earning less from gate receipts, the €198 million figure for the peninsula down 3% from last year. La Liga (€464m), Bundesliga (€488m) and the Premier League (€781m) all registered growth from the previous year, a worrying trend indeed for Serie A.

Overall profitability

Only Juventus (10th), Milan (15th), Roma (16th) and Inter (18th) feature in the top 30 clubs for revenue, with the Giallorossi the only Italian side to exceed the average growth rate of 12% for those top teams as they recorded a 21% increase. This could be due in part to supporters returning to Stadio Olimpico after their boycott, but their American owners are showing some intelligent business acumen too.

Under new ownership, Milan were the highest spenders, forking out €235 million for new players and only receiving €32 million in sales. Only PSG were further in the red than the Rossoneri, with Juventus showing a much more sensible business plan. They bought €151 million worth of new players but brought in €128m, meaning their balance sheet showed a healthier -€24m.

The bottom line net profitability for Serie A sides made for grim reading though, their -€203 million figure worst of all 20 leagues. Those losses had decreased by 30% from 2015, but Germany showed that a profit is possible, their final figure standing at plus €176 million.

It is to be hoped that those in charge of the league can put their heads together in order to help clubs to find a solution to these worrying statistics. Serie A has so much to offer football fans in terms of atmosphere, star players and overall experience that it would be a real shame to see the league decline as teams fall further behind others in Europe.

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