On Tuesday night Roma were knocked out of the Champions League qualifying stages following a humiliating 0-3 home defeat to Porto.
The Italians lost their cool after conceding an early goal with both De Rossi and Emerson seeing red on either side of the half time mark.
What has happened to the Serie A, a league which once dominated the top flight European competition? Where have the mighty sides that featured names like Van Basten, Maldini, Pirlo, Kaka, Eto’o, Zannetti and Cambiasso gone?
Recent history has shown that Napoli and Roma have failed to keep up with other European sides despite benefitting from increased revenue after qualifying for the Champions League these past few years.
Napoli also crashed out in the qualifying stages back in August 2014 against an average Atletico Bilbao squad, while last season they were beaten by a smarter Villarreal in the last 32.
Roma also failed to make it past the group stages in 2014 after being drawn in the same group with the European giants Bayern Munich and relatively virgin Manchester City. A year later they were comfortably beaten 4-0 on aggregate by Real Madrid in the Last 16.
Past giants
Undoubtedly the demise of Milan and Inter has seriously damaged the chances of Italy providing a handful of top sides capable of competing at the highest level.
Their fall from fortune is mainly due to a lack of long-term planning both at management level and also from the government body, known as FIGC. The Milan giants were used to decades of huge seasonal cash injections from their respective owners, an unsustainable practice, which has led them to their current predicament. This is now no longer possible under the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations.
The FIGC’s fault?
The FIGC can be blamed for their over bureaucratic and Draconian ways and have failed to learn lessons from the Premier League when it comes to selling the Serie A brand globally.
They also haven’t learned the lessons of the Bundesliga when it comes to ensuring clubs are properly structured.
One shocking fact is that only three Serie A sides actually own their own stadiums, meaning they lose out on significant ticket revenue.
Such shortcomings have led to both the Serie A and it’s respective clubs being lacking the financial ability to compete with the other European big sides.
Juventus are the only Italian side who have managed to create an extremely profitable model after building their own stadium in 2011. They have also proved to be very shrewd in the transfer market each season, their latest coup coming through the world record sale of French midfielder Paul Pogba to Manchester United.
Unfortunately all other Italian clubs lack far behind Juve, both in terms of commercial structure and quality on the pitch. This successful commercial model has ensured that Juventus are favourites to securing their sixth consecutive Scudetto, proving how successful it can be once a club has brought its act in order.
Prediction
Even though there are whispers of Italy potentially being guaranteed four Champions League spots every season due to their historical success, unless the Serie A gets its act together, it will remain well off the pace for the foreseeable future.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Given that we are seeing the same teams from smaller leagues in the UCL time and time again the question must be asked....is the money awarded for participating in the UCL diminishing the competitiveness of smaller leagues in Europe?
AZ_RBB
Guest
On top of that you'll have Juve rake in huge money from this UCL campaign just like they have over recent years. Creating an even greater gap between them and the rest. In 14/15 Juve picked up 90M Euros from UCL. Season before they received 45M euros. Crazy money
Rellum
Roar Guru
Here is a more up to date figure for the league for TV rights http://www.gazzettaworld.com/features/juventus-tv-revenues/?refresh_ce-cp Very little money is coming in from overseas. I think they only recently broadcast in HD so the product as it were was not great for international audiences, added in with calciopoli and this is really still a recovery period.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Juve is the only team that has any real chance of silverware in Europe. Roma self imploded against Porto in a very painful way. Roma and Napoli have teams that are good enough to aim for the knock out rounds of the UCL but don't have the culture, well at least Roma doesn't to win consistently, especially when the pressure is on. Even in the Europa League I don't think any Italian team will get past the round of 16. Roma is trying to emulate the business model of Juve in they are trying to build a new world class stadia, but the red tap is proving quite the obstacle. There are many complex reasons why Italians teams do not do well anymore and it is going to take money and time for that to fix itself. It may come down to 4 or 5 clubs having the ability to modernize and the rest dropping way off. Behind the scenes Calcio is a basket case really. The TV deal is not close to other leagues and it is split up to really favor the bigger clubs. see here http://www.totalsportek.com/football/italian-serie-a-tv-rights-money-distribution/
AZ_RBB
Guest
I think Serie A is in for a similar European season to EPL. Both go in one great hope namely Juve and City. Juve arguably the much stronger hope but City are a real threat. Both Napoli and Arsenal might cause some problems but will be surprised to see either go past the quarters. But it is a shame Roma failed so miserably in their play off game.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Italian football has some significant governance issues, though I'd be wary of using the Champions League as the lead indicator. The governance issues that you touch upon in the FGIC section are interesting and I'd love to learn more, particularly as to whether the "Juventus model" is replicable, or indeed desirable. Also has the change in Juventus' fortunes come from a remodeling of the governance and business structure of the club following the corruption debacle or is it something else? One thing I find interesting is that Bundesliga, La Liga and Eredivisie have made their way onto the regular cable package in many of the Asian nations I wander through, but not Serie A.
RBBAnonymous
Guest
A strange article indeed. You could have picked a number of leagues for their failures in the champions league. The EPL would have been a better starting point. After all they are supposedly the richest and most popular league in the world. Sure the Series A teams haven't fared well but neither have the English teams in Europe. It has been failure after failure at club level. Don't even get me started at International level.