Serie A chief: Young stars burn out, Italian football needs change | OneFootball

From the need to contain the salaries of younger players to the overload of match calendars, from the crisis of TV rights to the competition from the Premier League, and including collaboration with the National Team and the stadium issue: the president of Lega Serie A charts the course for the future of Italian football.

Lega Serie A, Simonelli raises the alarm: “Young players are already millionaires, the system burns them out. We need a new culture in Italian football”

During the Sport Industry Talk, Ezio Simonelli addressed one of the most delicate issues for the sustainability and credibility of the football system: the economic management of young talents. According to the president, current salaries risk compromising the developmental path of those taking their first steps in professional football: “If it were up to me, I would set aside part of the young players’ remuneration in a fund with the Federation, because they need to be hungry and not feel like they’ve already made it. At eighteen, they shouldn’t be thinking about buying a Ferrari.”

For Simonelli, the excess of immediate wealth creates a distortion that can affect mentality and career building: “At the beginning, they need to grow, improve, not convince themselves they’ve already arrived.”

Saturated calendars: “There are too many games, but it’s not Serie A’s responsibility”

The president then moved on to the issue of competition overload, a problem affecting clubs, players, and the quality of the spectacle: “There are too many games, that’s obvious. But Serie A hasn’t changed anything in the last twenty-one years: it’s FIFA and UEFA competitions that have multiplied the matches.”

The new Champions League, described as “a tournament within a tournament,” has contributed to an increasingly difficult congestion to manage: “The cause cannot be attributed to Serie A.”

TV rights at a turning point and a fleeing market: “The peak has been reached”

Simonelli also analyzed the economic landscape, with particular attention to television rights: “I fear we have reached the peak. Major investors are shifting their budgets to international competitions.”

A trend that risks weakening the Italian league just as it becomes harder to retain the best talents: “In the last six years we’ve had four different champions, but we can’t compete with the Premier League. When a young player emerges, like Leoni from Parma, English offers become impossible to match.”

National team and playoffs: “Total availability, while respecting contracts”

With World Cup qualification at stake, Lega Serie A assures its collaboration with FIGC and Spalletti: “Our availability is one hundred percent. We’ll do everything possible to guarantee the training camp requested by the coach.”

However, Simonelli reminded that any calendar changes must respect agreements with broadcasters: “There are signed contracts, it doesn’t depend solely on us. But qualifying is fundamental: the World Cup is a decisive showcase for our football.”

New stadiums, decisive acceleration: “Sessa is the perfect choice to lead the change”

In closing, the president expressed great satisfaction for the appointment of engineer Massimo Sessa as extraordinary commissioner for sports facilities: “I’m happy with Minister Abodi’s words. They did a masterpiece by choosing engineer Sessa.”

According to Simonelli, the technical expertise and dual professional profile of the new commissioner represent a concrete opportunity to unlock a long-standing issue in Italian football: “Having someone like him will speed up the construction of new stadiums. His role and experience will make everything easier.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.