Lega Serie A president Lorenzo Casini drew attention to the ‘bureaucratic issues’ when discussing the poor state of football stadiums across Italy.
It’s no secret that stadiums across the country are in a fairly poor and rundown state, mostly due to the fact that the vast majority are owned by the local councils, rather than clubs themselves. A few teams, like Juventus and Atalanta, have benefitted from owning their own homes for various reasons, like greater commercial opportunities and control over renovations.
A number of clubs at the top of the Serie A table have been dreaming of building their own stadiums for years, with teams like Milan, Inter, Roma and Lazio all pushing to try and take their projects forward. Progress in all of these cases has been slow due to the nature of Italian bureaucracy.
Speaking at a conference in Rome via TMW, Casini first discussed the political red-tape surrounding the construction of new football stadiums.
“For industry you need factories and for football you need stadiums. If we look at the situation in Italy it is disastrous. There is a legal administrative problem with the municipalities. Italian football is still the most competitive, even if we look at other leagues or non-top level matches.”
He touched on the difficulty of having a consistent government line on the topic, considering the relatively unstable nature of Italian politics.
“Sport doesn’t ask for money, but we ask to be put in a position to produce more resources. An exception is represented by Fiorentina‘s Viola Park.
“In 30 months and with over €110m, Commisso created a centre that President Ceferin placed in the highest range of European ones. However, things can be done with difficulty and the bureaucratic issue is fundamental.”
Finally, Casini weighed in on the Serie A TV rights debate.
“I thank president De Laurentiis, who confirms how the League is a democratic association where the teams can express their different positions, then in this case a large majority decision was reached.
“Furthermore, the Minister for Sport, Andrea Abodi, confirmed the validity of the agreement in a difficult context where all the leagues, including the Premier League, struggle to obtain higher prices than what they were used to.”
italy willnot host euros they wont spend the money and the and are our players are okay
give it to tuurkey
Yeah lets turn Italian stadiums into the soulless , sterile corporate bowls they have in England . Sit down and clap politely whilst munching on a £10 gourmet burger.
If those sterile corporate bowls increase the teams revenue and brings in better players from all over the world, I’m failing to see a problem here.