Italian soccer is in crisis. Italian clubs have been shut out of the knock-out phase of the Champions League the past two seasons. The Azzurri, one of the favorites to win the 2002 World Cup, won only one of four games and was upset by South Korea in the second round.
Trouble on the field have been compounded by problems off the field.
Fiorentina, one of the great names of Italian soccer, collapsed and was relegated to Serie C2 (Fourth Division) in the offseason. Every returning Serie A club except 2001-02 surprise Chievo has cut its budget for the 2002-03 season in the face of mounting financial problems. Lazio had three transfer deals blocked until it can provide guarantees that it will be able to pay the players.
Ronaldo, the hero of Brazil's 2002 World Cup campaign, announced he wanted to leave Inter Milan for Real Madrid. The news came a year after Zinedine Zidane, the French World Cup hero four years earlier, left Juventus for Madrid.
AC Milan's signing of Rivaldo, Ronaldo's Brazil teammate, from Barcelona did little to dispel the notion that Italy's Serie A, once the most powerful league in the world, has been surpassed by Spain's La Liga in terms of star appeal and England's Premier League for its commercial success.
The problems are so severe that the Italian federation (FIGC) is closing its borders to players from countries with which Italy does not have labor agreements. The move – which impacts South Americans and Africans – is reminiscent of the ban on imports after Italy lost to North Korea in the 1966 World Cup – a ban that lasted 15 seasons.
The crisis reached its peak Aug. 20 when clubs moved to delay the start of the season for two weeks because eight Serie A teams are at an impasse with television operators Telepiu and Stream over pay-per-view rights. Telepiu and Stream, the two major per-per-view outfits, are merging and have offered less than half the 10 million euros ($9.84 million) the eight clubs are each demanding.
RAI, the state television network, is threatening to end its 40-year association with Serie A. It says it will drop the ''90th Minute,'' the highest-rated sports show in Italy, unless the Lega Calcio, the Italian league, cuts its asking price for highlight rights in half from 88.8 million euros ($87.4 million).
''RAI is not prepared to bleed itself dry to save soccer clubs that are suffocating in debt,'' RAI director general Agostino Sacca told the daily Corriere della Sera.
For years, there was no live coverage of Serie A soccer. The ''90th Minute,'' a half-hour show, was about all fans saw of Sunday's action. Later, a Sunday night TV game was added. When the cable and digital boom hit Italy in the late 1990s, clubs tried to get in on the action. Serie A's big clubs, all with followings across the Peninsula, signed lucrative TV deals, but their revenues couldn't keep up with escalating player expenses.
Few believed Lega Calcio president Adriano Galliani when he called the decision to postpone the start of the Serie A season from Sept. 1 to Sept. 15 ''a good day for Italian soccer.''
Without Serie A action, tifosi turned their attention to the Azzurri. But the news is bleak on the national team front. A day after Italian clubs voted to delay, Italy fell to Slovenia, 1-0, in Trieste. The result in the Azzurri's first friendly since the 2002 World Cup is only further evidence that Italian soccer's bubble has burst.
by Soccer America Managing Editor Paul Kennedy