Serie A attendances best in 17 years

Seaneh

Article from Football-Italia.net

Serie A matches had a record boost in attendances this season, their best in 17 years, with Inter topping the charts.
The Lega Calcio today released the full statistics of the campaign that saw a huge boost in people going to the stadiums.

A total of 9,642,640 tickets were sold, the highest number since the 1992-93 haul of 9,977,878.

There was an average of 25,375 spectators per match in the Italian top flight.

Inter had the top attendance with an average of 55,597, followed by Napoli on 47,049, Milan with 42,809, Roma’s 40,925 and Lazio on 36,515.

However, this doesn’t necessarily translate into a cash boost for the clubs, as the stadiums are still owned by local councils.

“We need to push through a fundamental law for Italian football,” warned Lega Calcio President Maurizio Beretta.

“It is essential that the clubs own the stadiums and can run them from start to finish, not just for a few hours a week.

“They also have to be made responsible for the security and services offered.”

Juventus will be the first side in Serie A to have their own stadium, as the old Delle Alpi is currently being renovated.

Good news for the league, along with the upcomming restructuring of Calico and a better TV Rights package (fairer on all teams) this will Help Serie A kick on with the progress that has been made in the last 3/4 seasons.

But as the article cays, clubs NEED to build their own stadiums. The recent security issue (where the San Siro was reduced to 50k capacity for several games including two CL games because of re-fitting a few years ago and almost every other stadium in the league was affected) only happened becuse clubs were un-willing to invest their own money ion a structure they don't own and don't get the return from and rightly so.


Juve will be the first team to own their own ground with the re-development of the Delle Apli, which is impressive looking to say the least but really, Juve need more than a 40k stadium! But atleast it means they are out of the olmpico after next season.

Inter hope to have their new 65k seater stadium ready for the 2014/2015 season, rumor has it that the stadium will be be named after club icon Giacinto Facchetti. I haven't seen much else about this but there is talk of it being extremely high-tech with personal screens for each seat for replays etc.

A.C. Milan will, by all accounts, buy the San Siro from Comune di Milano for a knock down fee after inter move out and proceed with major redevelopments, apparently the capacity will drop to about 70k but it will be a world class facility and football only designed. Other rumors are that they will build a new 65k stadium based on the Veltins-Arena and it will be named after a sponsor, but most people consider this more of a ploy by Galliani and Berlusconi to try force the hand of the local authorities who would then be stuck with an 80k seater stadium with nothing to do with it.

The reason teams need their own stadia is because at present they have to split their gate with the council and thus are missing out on an insane amount of cash and needlessly giving money away.

Mr. Presentable

It may herald the start of recovery for the league. When more clubs own their stadia and get to keep more of their revenue, they can start to invest in recovering their paramount position in Europe. It's going to take 10-20 years I'd imagine.

The small stadium for Juventus is probably dictated by the small crowds they've been getting since they moved to Delle Alpi and in my opinion shows a lack of ambition. Unless, of course, they've figured out that the future will be broadcast only and that in future people won't attend matches, in which case it's genius..........

pickarooney

I never really bought the Juventus fans' reasons for not going to the games at the Delle Alpi and think 40k is an ambitious size for their stadium. I hope I'm proved wrong and it's full every game.

Zebra3

Redevelop the San Siro? Why?

What a f***ing stadium! :pac:

IRISHSPORTSGUY

pickarooney wrote: »

I never really bought the Juventus fans' reasons for not going to the games at the Delle Alpi and think 40k is an ambitious size for their stadium. I hope I'm proved wrong and it's full every game.

Juve are obviously a massive club (12 million+ supporters in Italy), but their fans are cold/fickle. Chuck in the fact that most of their support isn't actually from Torino, the view was terrible and the stadium used to slope outwards from the pitch (fans don't feel close to the action), hey presto. Terrible atmosphere and low attendances follow.

Loved Italian football when I was a young'un, maybe with our Italian connection we might see a few of our lads playing in Serie A in the not-too-distant future.

Seaneh

pickarooney wrote: »

I never really bought the Juventus fans' reasons for not going to the games at the Delle Alpi and think 40k is an ambitious size for their stadium. I hope I'm proved wrong and it's full every game.

it was just a horrible horrible stadium.

Seaneh

Follow up on the original post

Galliani says Italian teams need their own stadia.

BigBenRoeth

Hopefully the league will start picking up big time now,brilliant.