Why Are Italian Football Stadiums So Bad?

whilst premier league stadiums look like this La Liga stadiums like this and Bundesliga stadiums like this most Syria stadiums look something a bit more like this that is the 43 147 capacity stadio artemio Frankie home of two-time Syria and six-time copper Italia winners Fiorentina designed by Pierre Luigi Navi the same architect who designed the Hall of pontifical audiences in the Vatican the stadio artemio Frankie first opened in September 1931 which actually makes it one of the newer stadiums in Syria there is a certain charm and imposing rawness about Italian football stadiums but that doesn't change the fact that they are the emptiest and by far the least profitable in Europe's Big Five leagues in the Premier League's inaugural season exactly 30 years ago the average attendance in football's Top Flight was 21 one hundred and thirty the average attendance in Syria that exact same season was 57 373 almost three times the Premier League's average and it was even higher still over 59 000 in the 1991-92 campaign within a decade of its Inception the Premier League had already overtaken Syria in terms of attendances with Premier League crowds having risen steadily to an average of thirty five thousand four hundred and sixty four memo Syria attendances had plummeted to just 25 472 these days the average attendance in Syria is 28 945 up from 23 101 10 years ago but still massively down from where they once were meanwhile the Premier League now averages over 40 000 despite Brentford and bournemouth's petite stadiums shall we just say bringing that average down that is problematic for Syria teams both optically and financially the appearance of Syria stadiums with hordes of empty seats outside of the biggest games and a handful of clubs looks terrible on television and makes the league a much tougher product to sell than their Rivals overseas financially not only does fewer fans directly equal less Revenue the state of Italian football stadiums and their ownership structures means that those fans that do still attend games are much less lucrative and profitable than match-going fans in England Germany or Spain facts are in the loss of revenue from poor Optics results in less lucrative broadcast deals as well and one could make a pretty decent case that Italian football's dark damp inhospitable and in many cases crumbling stadiums is the primary cause of at Italian football's demise over the last two to three decades so why don't they just build new stadiums well one team has done namely the biggest Club in Italian football Juventus and it has been a major success but whilst the will is there to do likewise at other Italian clubs making that a reality has proved to be much more difficult so in today's video I wanted to take a look at Italian football's decrepits old stadiums many of which are increasingly beginning to resemble a Coliseum but with considerably less Granger why they are so bad why it is such a colossal problem and why it is proving so difficult to fix it's been a rough few decades for Syria almost universally regarded as the best league on the planet during the 1990s the all-italian 2003 Champions League final between AC Milan and Juventus felt like the end of an era by that stage the Premier League had already overtaken Syria in terms of Revenue and three years later Italian football was rocked by the culture poly Scandal Italy's biggest and most successful Club Juventus were stripped of their 200405 and 200506 garazos kicked out of the UEFA Champions League and relegated to Syria B meanwhile AC Milan Fiorentina and Lazio were all deducted 30 points for the 2000 506 season and handed further points deductions along with Regina in the 200607 campaign the caltropolis Scandal not only strips Syria of its biggest club and therefore created a much less attractive Prospect for both fans and broadcasters alike it also led to a lot of supporters simply becoming disillusioned with Italian football sport is built upon the premise of fairness which is why any hint of corruption is so damaging many of those fans who became disillusioned with Italian football because of cultropoli which came in the midst of a broader malaise have never returned The Following Season AC Milan won their seventh Champions League or European Cup moving them to within two titles of the competition's most successful Club Real Madrid in the 15 years since then just one Italian Club Jose mourinho's underdogs Inter Milan in 2019 have won their champions league and in the 12 years since that Triumph Juventus are the only Italian Club to have reached the final of the competition losing to Spanish Giants Real Madrid and Barcelona in both 2015 and 2017. for many years Italy's biggest clubs were bankrolled by the Patriarchs of Mega Rich Italian families AC Milan had in Summerland had the moratis and the Avengers had the angelis from the 1960s through to the 1990s this ownership model suited Italian football very well Italian football spent more money on players in terms of transfer fees and wages than any other league on the planet while still only accounting for a fairly small percentage of their Super Rich owners net worths which they deemed to be a worthwhile investment for reasons of power politics and Prestige World football and particularly European football has changed a lot since the 1990s though the Advent of the Premier League was a game changer in terms of marketing and therefore both commercial and broadcast Revenue as football became commodified and commercialized so would agree that it never previously had Italian Football watched on at these developments with an element of righteous and Justified distaste swim with a misplaced arrogance about its status within the world and a naivety as to how quickly that could all be lost now the team that finishes bottom of the Premier League table each season and is therefore relegated to the championship still receives more money in terms of broadcast Revenue than the team that wins the Syria title each season and being a single digit billionaire is no longer enough to ensure that your Club retains a seat at the top table of European Football Premier League clubs not only have wildly disproportionate broadcast Revenue compared to the rest of Europe there are only two premier league teams now that aren't owned by billionaires meanwhile Manchester City are effectively owned by the Emirates of Abu Dhabi Newcastle United are owned by the state of Saudi Arabia much as they would claim otherwise and there are currently talks of a state-back Atari takeover of Manchester United Elsewhere on the continents the only teams consist only able to keep Pace with a spending power of Premier League teams and many of them with great difficulty it should be said a PSG also owned by the state of Qatar Bayern Munich who have effectively monopolized German football and the Spanish Giants of Real Madrid and Barcelona the latter of whom having had to get quite creative in terms of their accounting just to make that possible in light of this new reality the berlusconis and moratis have sold up at AC and into Milan meanwhile Juventus less than 17 years on from caltropoli are currently facing a fresh Scandal once again have already been hit with a massive 15-point deduction this season and longtime chairman Andrea Angeli of the Angeli family resigned along with the rest of the Juventus board in light of the club's latest Scandal replaced by Gianluca Ferrero in November 2022 when he sold AC Milan in 2 2017 Silvio Berlusconi told the club supporters in the modding game to compete at the highest level in Europe and the world requires investment and resources a single family can no longer support given that the Berlusconi family is the fifth richest in Italy with an estimated net worth of seven billion dollars it was a telling admission from one of the most significant figures in Italian football Berlusconi has since bought and appointed his brother as the chairman of nearby AC Monza reflecting the level at which someone of his wealth now feels as though they are capable of operating at within European football the seeds of Syria's declined had already been sown long before calchopoli but 2006 was a particularly unusual year even by the standards of Italian football fresh off the back of the Scandal Italy were written off by most observers heading into the 2006 World Cup Italy have been dumped out in controversial circumstances by South Korea at the previous World Cup with Captain Paolo Maldini having retired following that disappointment meanwhile Francesco Totti came into their squad injured and there were some doubts about whether it would even be fit in time to feature totty did feature though starring in all seven of Italy's games as Marcelo lippy's mendified all expectations going all the way and beating France on penalties in the final to claim their fourth world cup Crown in the semi-finals Italy won two nil after extra time against Germany and dormant it was heartbreak for the hosts against their old foes as the fifth time that they had faced Italy at the FIFA World Cup and the fifth time that they had failed to beat them but in many respects whilst Italy took the glory in 2006 it was the Germans who had the last laugh Germany utilized the 2006 World Cup to totally transform the nation's footballing infrastructure two brand new stadiums were built the Allianz Arena and the central studion meanwhile eight underwent major Renovations most notably of all the Olympia stardian which put them on par with most brand new Arenas the two exceptions in terms of World Cup venues were the velton's arena opened in 2001 and the Volks Park stadion which had already undergone major Renovations in 1998. of course 16 years earlier Italy had been handed the exact same opportunity when they were awarded worker posting rights by FIFA in 1990 as with Germany Italy built two brand new stadiums for the World Cup the despised stadio de la Alpine Turin which became the new home ground of both Juventus and Torino and the utterly ridiculous stadio San Nicola in Barry which inevitably became the new home home of SSC body a further 10 underwent Renovations of some kind or another and it's not as though Italy hosted the World Cup on the cheap a total of four billion dollars was spent hosting the tournament which is actually more than the 5.2 billion dollars that Germany spent in 2006 once adjusted for inflation in terms of what Italy and Germany got in exchange for that investment however there is really no comparison 18 years on from when it first opened the Allianz Arena remains a world-class state-of-the-art venue which looks as though it could have been built in 2023 continues to generate among the most Match Day revenue for Bayern Munich of any club in Europe and will host several games including one of the two semi-finals a Euro 2024. just 16 years after it opened by comparison the stadio de la alpi have been shut down with Juventus and Sereno having moved out and just three years after that so 19 years after it was built at a cost of 200 million euros it was entirely demolished the Della alpi was hated by both Juventus and Torino fans are like when the stadium first opened Juventus owner giardianeli complained that you could barely see the game from the stands and that it was like playing every game away from home it later transpired that the architect had never watched a game of football before in his life fans complained that not only were they far too far away from the pitch the ground was inhospitable and unwelcoming and that the drainage system was designed in such a way that it frequently flooded the pitch the stadio San Nicola meanwhile which I have talked about at length previously on this channel is much less despised but even more bizarre built at an exorbitant cost in the middle of nowhere the stadio San Nicola is about an hour's walk from the center of Barry which is itself only the ninth largest city in Italy meanwhile SSC Barry were a perennial yo-yo Club whose previous home ground held fewer than 20 000 fans two years after it opened Barry were relegated once again the stadio San Nicola is absolutely enormous capable of but very rarely accommodating 58 270 fans which makes it the fourth largest stadium in Italy tired outdated and typically more than half empty Barry decided in 2017 less than 30 years after it opened that the sun nicolor required between 120 to 150 million euros worth of Renovations which would reduce the capacity by Thirteen thousand unfortunately a year later in 2018 Barry were liquidated and forced to start out again in the fourth tier of Italian football as a Phoenix Club meaning that those plans never went ahead there were minor Renovations carried out in 2012 see at a significantly lower cost but they were nowhere near sufficient the stadio San Nicola is idiotic as a football stadium but it is beautiful as a work of art with its 26 petals looking particularly stunning when lit up on an evening there are those who would argue not entirely without Merit I don't think that the chaos and dysfunction of Italian football summed up by something like the stadio send Nicola which is a near 60 000 seater Syria B stadium is part of its magic and part of what makes it so captivating to those who adore it and not only didn't give up on it through its Myriad of crises but view them as part of its charmand appeal the Premier League's newest stadiums such as the Emirates the Tottenham Hotspur stadium and the London Stadium are hospitable but sanitized no one could accuse the stadiawerechi in Salerno or better still the stadio castellanian Empire of being either of those things there are two sides to every argument and that is perhaps best summed up in the context of Italian football stadiums by the debate surrounding the possible Demolition and Replacements of the sansero which has been home to Inter Milan since 1947 and AC Milan with only a six-year exception since 1926. to some the sunsero is an integral part of the fabric and both the physical and emotional landscape of the city of Milan and demolishing it would be like knocking down the Santa Maria de la grazi or the city's famous Cathedral to others including most notably the hierarchies are both inter and AC Milan the sancero is outdated inflexible and unable to provide either club with the kind of revenues that they would need to compete with Europe salute the biggest issue with the sunsero on that front is not just that it is 97 years old Old Trafford is technically older than that and remains extremely profitable it is that it is so sorely lacking in corporate and Hospitality facilities which is where Europe's Mega clubs now rake in serious cash one would think that in a world of enormous television rights deals and selling merchandise around the globe Match Day Revenue would be relatively insignificant to the world's biggest football clubs but they would be badly wrong match day revenue is worth more than 100 million euros a year to Arsenal PSG Manchester United Tottenham Hotspur Real Madrid and Barcelona and not much less than that to the likes of Liverpool Bayern Munich and Chelsea for most of these clubs that is between a quarter and a fifth of their revenue whilst also boosting commercial profits hence why the kobit 19 pandemic was so disastrous for a lot of clubs particularly those who were more dependent upon match day in the words of George Orwell though not all football fans are created equal Bayern Munich are renowned for their affordable season tickets but you don't rake in 70 million pounds plus a season without someone coughing up some serious change and at Bayern as with most clubs it is those sat in the Posh seats who do just that when Juventus who are the one major Italian clubs who have built their own stadium in recent years left the 69 000 capacity stadio de la LP behind in 2006 they built a stadium which could only hold 41 507 fans that is a decrease of 27 493 or one whole Carrow road which you might have thought would damage their revenue but Juventus increased their corporate offering and saw an enormous 200 at 82 percent increase in their match day Revenue Juventus have raked in an additional 50 million euros plus a season since moving into the event I saw Allianz stadium with the exception of the covered years of course which puts them in A League of Their Own given the rest of the League's circumstances and played a huge role in their prolonged period of Relentless success following the move in 2011. the capacity of 41 507 has long been questioned given juventus's enormous domestic and international fan base but the club has remained steadfast in its belief that it is the perfect size ensuring that the stadium is almost always entirely full and creating a much better Atmos spare with fans feeling on top of the players and close to the action a feeling of fans being too far from the pitch was one of the biggest issues not just with the dollar LP leading to its Swift demolition but with so many italian football stadiums that's his partly because when Italy plowed four billion dollars into hosting the World Cup in 1990 Primo nebiolo who was the Italian head of the International Association of Athletics federations at the time made the case that if the state was to throw so much money at hosting a football tournament the new or renovated venues should at least be able to accommodate Athletics as well it might seem like a reasonable argument on the face of it but in Italy as with most of Europe football is pretty much the only sport capable of consistently filling or even coming close to filling massive stadiums every week by putting an Athletics track around a football pitch you push fans further away from the pitch giving them a worse View and the grounder worse atmosphere which is largely pointless if you never need a stadium that large to host athletics events in the first place we saw here in England with the case of the 2012 Olympic stadium in London just how difficult and expensive it is to convert an athletic Stadium into a purpose-built football stadium and the issues with supporters that that can entail the UK had that problem with one admittedly very expensive Stadium Italy has it with several another thing that is worth adding is that for all of Italy and Italian football's faults in terms of planning and design particularly in relation to Italian 90 and believe me they are plentiful there were some pitfalls that were somewhat out of their control the 1990s for example was just a period of Rapid modernization in terms of how stadiums were designed and built the stadio de la alpi and the stadio San Nicola might have seen modern in 1990 but before the decade was done the likes of the Amsterdam Arena now the Johan Cruyff Arena and the stud de France which could pass as being brand new stadiums now had already put them to shame the Taylor reports in England published at the beginning of the 1990s into the causes of the Hillsborough disaster forced clubs to rapidly modernize their grounds and in many cases to build new ones entirely that was opposed by a lot of football clubs at the time given the cost that they were forced to incur but it made stadiums safer more hospitable and much more family-friendly leading to better venues better crowds and therefore higher revenues for clubs in the long term in an example of how in some cases regulation can actually Force businesses to take a longer term Outlook and leads is a greater economic growth it wasn't just that when Juventus moved to their own ground in 2011 that they were able to flog a load of Posh seats to Children's prawn sandwich Brigade though that did certainly help it was that they actually moved to their own ground with an emphasis on the word owner the vast majority of Italian clubs with only a few exceptions don't own their own stadiums instead most stadiums are owned by the local Council and municipalities and are leased out to the clubs who occupy them and who therefore have to pay rent owning your own stadium not only allows a club to make internal and external Renovations as And when they see fit and according to their own circumstances rather than at the whims of the local municipality or in most cases just never at all without having to pay rent and whilst retaining 100 of their match day Revenue it all also gives clubs the ability to sell the naming rights for their ground often for very lucrative sums build things like a museum Superstore and hotel on the same site all of which events are done and to earn Revenue through non-football related events let's take a look at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium which since opening in 2019 has played host a major boxing events NFL games both rugby league and Rugby Union and concerts by Guns and Roses Lady Gaga and soon Beyonce sure Tottenham still won't win anything but that's a major Cash Cow for the club sorry Spurs fans that was totally uncalled for whilst it was once the case that Italian football looked at stadiums like the Emirates and the Allianz Arena being built with a sense of ignorance of the fact that Italian football was being left in the Dust by their peers there is now a consensus that changes required at either new stadiums need to be built or existing stadiums majorly renovated so problem solved it's only a matter of time before we see a load of Brands spanking new state-of-the-art stadiums in Italy bringing them in line with the Premier League and the Bundesliga and owned by the clubs themselves thus increasing their earning potential match day and subsequently both broadcast and Commercial revenue and re-establishing Syria as the dominant force in European football once again right right unfortunately it's not quite that simple in football as in almost everything else money begets money meanwhile bad decisions often create a vicious cycle poor planning means Syria revenues relatively speaking are low meanwhile building a state-of-the-art football stadium tends not to come cheap what's more Italy is famous for its bureaucracy and backwards planning regulations according to research while stadiums across most of Europe take between two to three years to be built from planning to completion that average Rises to between 8 to 10 years in Italy Roma's planned new stadium the stadio De La Roma was halted and effectively aborted in February 2021 a whopping 3313 days after it was first announced with so much dependency upon local municipalities agreeing to approach objects and helping to facilitate them plans that have been years in the making can sometimes be scuppered by something as simple as the election of a new mayor which was the case with Roma among several other issues it must be said the same issue in terms of bureaucracy a lack of Forward Thinking and in many instances either outright or something that strongly resembles corruption means that Italy's public transport often lags behind its Continental counterparts on that front which is another issue for football clubs and attendances due to the difficulty of getting to and from games and then you add to all of those issues the fact that over the last 12 months it has become much more expensive to borrow money something which any Italian football club is going to have to do in order to build their own ground I like to end these videos on a positive note and I suppose the positive is that Italian clubs have finally realized over the last decade that radical reform is required there are now five Syria clubs with American owners including Atalanta AC Milan and roma at a further three in Syria Bay a lot of American private Equity firms are of the view the European football is a great product that word not mine but the Europeans are basically rubbish at marketing nowhere is that more true than in Syria whose overseas TV rights deal for the current three-year cycle from 2021 to 2024 is worth 670 million euros compared to the Premier League's three-year deal from 2022 to 2025 which is worth 6.55 billion euros former Syria president Paolo del Pino had promised to rectify that imbalance with some bold ideas but he resigned in February 2022 to to relocate his family permanently to California as he headed Stateside plenty of Americans have made the opposite Journey seeing the opportunity to pick up clubs on the cheap increase revenues both individually and as a collective and to make out like Bandits whether they will be able to do that Still Remains to be seen and there are plenty of positive signs for Italian football outside of the stadium problem for the first time since the 200506 season there are three teams in this season's UEFA Champions League quarterfinals AC Milan being drawn against Napoli also means that there is guaranteed to be at least one Italian team in the semi-finals and if Inter Milan are able to overcome Benfica there will be another all-italian tie in the semis carrying the guarantee of an Italian finalist for the first time in six years there's every reason to believe that Siri has new owners and administrators will professionalize certain aspects of the league and maximize commercial Avenues open to them but it is hard to find too many positives to end on from a stadium perspective which is after all you know the entire subject of this video on that fronts progress is slow and by slow in most cases I mean non-existent problems in terms of planning bureaucracy and cost all persist and as long as that remains the case Italy will be a great place to go and see what it was like to watch a football match third to 50 years ago but Italian teams will face a Monumental challenge attempting to repeat their success in the Champions League this season on a consistent basis that is it for today's video but thank you all very much as ever for watching I sincerely hope you enjoyed it hit the like button if that was the case let me know your thoughts Down Below in the comments and make sure that you are subscribed and have notifications turned on both for this Channel and my second Channel both of which should be on your screens now you can also find me on Twitter or on Instagram via the username at hrcc Sims on both should you wish to do so

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 556,404

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Italy, Serie A, Stadiums, Bad, Stadium, Premier League, Champions League, UEFA, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Calcio, Stadio, Venue, Arena, San Siro, Documentary, Serie B, Football Stadiums

Id: d2CWWvPUmy4

Length: 30min 39sec (1839 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 07 2023