Despite Inter Milan, AC’s fiercest rivals, reaching the top of European football recently and facing off against Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League, Italian football doesn’t hold the same standing or preserved reputation it had in the 1990s or early 2000s. We’re not saying that’s a bad thing. If anything, Italian football has managed to maintain the atmosphere and prestige that has evaded some other leagues like the English Premier League.
Although many English football fans suggest the Premier League (EPL) is the best in the world, it is overrun by money, high wages, and streamlined businesses. Where the Serie A lacks in colossal billionaire owners, it makes up for keeping traditional stadiums, fanbases, and a core of Italian footballers within their top flight. There are many reasons why football journalists and fans perceive Serie A as falling behind the likes of La Liga and The Premier League, and there’s a stark contrast between transfer fees and wages, which means a lot of the top players are paid far more money to play in these top leagues.
The Biggest Football Market – The EPL
There’s a more prominent global market for the English Premier League. There’s no bigger league worldwide. With more significant money comes greater advertising revenue, and one of the critical ways the EPL stays ahead is because of the colossal amount of gambling sponsors pouring their income into sponsorships.
Serie A officials discussed removing gambling adverts, but this has been met with ferocious opposition as many clubs within the league don’t want the possibility of falling behind other top European leagues with significant gambling revenue streams. Casinos have multiple revenue streams, whether it is roulette or an online blackjack games platform, or poker tournaments, to name a few. However, they are flexible and work with dozens of top industries, including high-level sports.
The problem for Serie A is if they banish gambling sponsors, there won’t be another stream of revenue so closely associated with football that allows them to attract big players.
Wage Disparity
The influx of billionaires into the EPL has caused wage hyperinflation. Forty years ago, football players could make a good living, but it was pretty modest. Nowadays, wages have reached such an excessive level that the highest-paid Premier League players receive double what the highest-played Serie A players do.
For instance, the recent Golden Boot winner in the EPL, Erling Haaland, is rumoured to be paid in the region of £375,00 weekly. However, given his goals this season have fired City to another EPL title and a European Cup final, he’s proven his immense worth in today’s market. On the other hand, his teammate Kevin De Bruyne is on a much higher wage of £400,000 per week.
Despite Liverpool’s fans often complaining they don’t have the financial muscle to compete with City, despite having the world’s most expensive goalkeeper and center-back, they are also paying Mohammad Salah £350,000 a week, Serie A, at the moment, can’t compete with this financial muscle.
Punching Above Their Weight
However, if you weigh up all of these points, Inter Milan and AC Milan played out a European Cup final, so the league’s quality is still immense. Moreover, Serie A hasn’t lost the charm that the English league has, where fans are merely customers, and the best team in whatever billionaire can pick his best fantasy football selection at the beginning of the season.
Serie A still has that tenacity and aura, and it’s still an extremely high standard of football. At the moment, Serie A is the perfect blend of all these things, and it would be naive to suggest that there’s no money in the Italian game. Of course, money is involved, but it pails in comparison to the EPL, where almost half the league’s owners are billionaires.
Jose Mourinho is another manager leading Italian teams into finals. He is doing excellent work with his Roma squad on a much smaller budget than some EPL teams who have spent upwards of half a billion just to end up in a relegation battle. Not only has Mourinho done this with a relatively small budget, but Roma is a team with pure heritage and one of the most recognisable grounds in European football, so it still has all the intrigue and tradition without being washed away by players on megamoney.
Conclusion
It depends on what variable you’re looking to measure this question on. Serie A is far behind the EPL regarding how much money flows into the league and how much the players get paid.
However, Inter Milan has proven by reaching the final that the quality on the pitch might not be as far away as some people suspect. If the EPL bubble bursts or Italian football begins to elevate itself to the excellent standards it set in the 1990s and 2000s, then Serie A could turn the tables again one day.
Set the financial gap aside, and it ultimately comes down to personal preference. IF you are a real football lover, then you will seek out football at all levels. I love watching the Spanish, French and dutch leagues in addition to Serie A and the premier league. But a bit like the Ronaldo vs Messi nonsense, comparisons are the name of the game. Personally for me, premier league on a whole lacks true soul. It is really the pop music of football. It is a global product that is marketed extremely well, but if I was English, I’d feel very uncomfortable at the idea that no English manager has ever won the premier league. That highlights it as a global marketing product than anything else.
Please never write about football ever again.
Serie A has a dearth of quality, it’s not to be understated — but the quality of football teams is more or less evenly distributed within its league, unlike the disproportionately strengthen teams in EPL and La Liga.