The Lega Serie A assembly voted in favor of maintaining the championship with 20 teams. Only four clubs, namely Inter, Juventus, Milan and Roma, voted in favor of the new 18-team format, with 16 votes instead agreeing to remain with 20 teams.
“The current 20-team format of the Serie A championship has been confirmed,” the League made official in a statement at the end of the meeting. Only four big names, therefore, were in fact in favor of the reduction to 18 teams: three of these, namely Inter, Juventus and Milan, in recent days had addressed the FIGC president Gabriele Gravina directly, in a meeting revealed by ANSA, to push on the reduction front, but it wasn’t enough.
Scaroni: “Unbearable load of matches”
“We see two misalignments between the institutions and the interests of the clubs. The first is between the League as a whole and the federation. We in the Lega Serie A who finance the entire game of Italian football have 12% of the power within of the Federation. This is an anomaly, the result of the Melandri law, which creates a sense of perpetual frustration. Our voice within the FIGC is weak when it should be strong, very strong, given that we pay all the bills of Italian football” . Thus the president of Milan Paolo Scaroni, guest of Radio Anch’io Sport on Rai Radio 1, on the clash between Lega Serie A and FIGC, between requests for greater autonomy and reform of the 18-team championship. “The second misalignment was improperly defined between small and large teams.
In reality, we clubs who play international competitions, who have many players called up by the national teams, complain about too many matches. Footballers play European cups, national team matches, the Italian Cup and the championship. All this leads to a load of matches that becomes unbearable and which is the cause of many injuries.” Then Scaroni talks about the 18-team championship: “I don’t know how it will work in the end, it will be debated today, I hope a solution can be reached. We have already had the championship with 18 teams, in fact I also remember it with 16. We want to avoid too many games. We play too much, it is also an issue for the protection of our players, who are our heritage. I don’t think one misalignment affects the other, they are two different issues. The League must count more within the FIGC, it is an issue that concerns everyone and which must be corrected.”
Cairo: “The big teams wanted to create a Superleghina”
“In the meeting the atmosphere was cordial and without high tone, but what they wanted to do seemed like a Superleghina. The other was the Superleghina, this is the Superleghina”. The president of Torino, Urbano Cairo, commented thus on the meeting that Inter, Juve and Milan had with the FIGC president, Gravina, to push for the reduction of Serie A to 18 teams. “The assembly today confirmed with an overwhelming majority the desire to maintain the format of 20 – continued Cairo at the end of the meeting -. Also because if you look at the most important championships in Europe, the English and the Spanish ones, they have 20 teams”.
The fact that the major European championships have 20 teams, added Cairo, “means that that is the format that works”https://gazzettadelsud.it/articoli/sport/2024/02/12/la-serie-a -he-voted-let’s-stay-at-20-teams-here-are-the-teams-that-were-in-favor-of-the-reduction-f88fa033-a1ae-4770-a13d-5957232d536b/.”In my opinion, that meeting in the FIGC of the three teams was not well received, it is right that the League has its own compactness and the timing of that meeting was totally wrong – added the Turin president speaking of Juve, Inter and Milan in the Football Federation -. split, they had the wrong attitude and I think it is right that there should be mutual respect which, however, was missing in this case. Marotta’s resignation from the Federal Council? No, I haven’t heard any of this”, he concluded.
League A: “Too many 100 professional teams”
Review the overall number of professional teams, because 100 is too high a number, to achieve greater economic-financial sustainability of the lower categories. It is one of the points contained in the reform project for Italian football in the League of A, which ANSA has reviewed. “It can no longer be postponed to redefine the mission of the various professional championships”, we read in the updated document, approved today in the assembly; it is necessary to “rethink and raise the requirements of the teams participating in professional leagues” and “review the number of promotions and relegations in the various leagues”
League A: “More weight and autonomy in Premier style”
There is also the issue of federal governance in the reform project for Italian football in the Lega Serie A, which ANSA has examined and which the club assembly approved today. “It becomes urgent to introduce corrective measures that ensure Serie A plays the role it deserves”, explains the League, which asks for a rebalancing of weights in the FIGC Council and greater autonomy for Serie A in Premier style. Furthermore, among the requests to the Government are those regarding a percentage of the betting volume and the abolition of the ban on betting sponsorships, as well as the restoration of the benefit for expats.
League A: “Referees become professionals”
There are also refereeing details in the reform project for Italian football in the Serie A League, which ANSA has examined and which the club assembly approved today. The request is to recognize full independence of the arbitration sector, also taking The Hague out of the FIGC council. Furthermore, the proposal is to make arbitrators professional from a legal and contractual point of view. Among the topics of the requests to FIFA and UEFA there is the idea of VAR on call, making VAR dialogues public live, evaluating an increase in substitutions and experimenting with timed expulsions.