Why are Serie A attendances on the slide?

bucks73

IMO the main reason numbers are in decline is due to the poor standard of football.

Italian football has always been traditionally defensive. The Catanaccio style of play was to defend first. If you dont concede, you dont lose.

In the 70s and early 80s English football was miles ahead of everyone else until the European ban kicked in. The power base then swung over to Italy and the top players were drawn there thanks to the much higher wages.

After the ban was lifted and clubs were forced to improve stadia, football as an entertainment business took off. The money the clubs had now was huge and the top clubs could afford to pay the best wages.

Now that there are clubs in England, Spain and Germany who can not only match them financially but leave them in their wake , the power has swung away from Italy, this time to wider spread of countries. Now a lot of the worlds top players are not going to Italy and the domestic league has suffered.

Just watching the early game in the CL this evening and it still baffles me as to how someone as poor as Ibrahimovic can play for 2 of the worlds biggest clubs. I remember Giles saying a couple of years ago that he would be brilliant if he could finish. ie he didnt have the most important skill necessary for a striker. An earlier poster commented on the astronomical wages clubs were paying to players with no commitment and surely this is a perfect example. This guy is at best average and God only knows what kind of money he is on. I certainly wouldnt pay good money to watch him play, in a concrete bowl, way outside town, for a team that bought a couple of titles.

Savman

bucks73 wrote:

Now that there are clubs in England, Spain and Germany who can not only match them financially but leave them in their wake , the power has swung away from Italy, this time to wider spread of countries. Now a lot of the worlds top players are not going to Italy and the domestic league has suffered.

Absolutely spot on.

I actually forgot about the "foreigner rule" in the early Premiership days.

Seaneh

I have just one thing to say to this board.

If you really think the standard of football in england and germany is better than that in Italy, you really really need to start following a differaint game, maybe something like darts, because you know c0ck all about football.

kinaldo

Serie A matches are officially half empty this season (or half full depending on your point of view), and the Premiership has the most full stadiums by a good distance, followed by Germany, then Spain and France.

This google spreadsheet highlights every team's attendances in relation to their current league position.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pi-f2AF9WH9oz5jEa8AFjGQ

Inter and Roma must be particularly disappointed with their turnouts.

eirebhoy

Roma and Inter's attendances are actually impressive by Italian standards.

Raskolnikov

Seaneh wrote:

I have just one thing to say to this board.

If you really think the standard of football in england and germany is better than that in Italy, you really really need to start following a differaint game, maybe something like darts, because you know c0ck all about football.

I don't know about that, Germany's top team Bayern Munich made Inter look very silly in the qualifiers this year. Last year, the Arse made mugs out of Juventus. The only team to impress me this year in Serie A is Roma, they're very much a pleasure to watch, as good in defence as they are going forward. I'd love to see them over turn Inter to win Serie A, it would most definitely be a triumph of football over money.

MrJoeSoap

kinaldo wrote:

Serie A matches are officially half empty this season (or half full depending on your point of view), and the Premiership has the most full stadiums by a good distance, followed by Germany, then Spain and France.

This google spreadsheet highlights every team's attendances in relation to their current league position.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pi-f2AF9WH9oz5jEa8AFjGQ

Inter and Roma must be particularly disappointed with their turnouts.

Thats shocking, three teams under 10,000 average. And there's me thinking the Italians loved their football.

The Premiership comes out top by some distance.

kinaldo

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Thats shocking, three teams under 10,000 average. And there's me thinking the Italians loved their football.

The Premiership comes out top by some distance.

I was most impressed with the Bundesliga. Hamburg are second from bottom and their ground is 98% full every week averaging over 55k every game! Last Wednesday against CSKA Moskow when they had already finished bottom of the group and had nothing to play for but pride, not even a Uefa Cup place, over 45k turned up! When Newcastle played Frankfurt last week 47k turned up and the place was rocking. We can barely even get that for a league game, never mind the Uefa Cup when the stadium is more than half empty.