Serie A clubs call for collective TV rights

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The repercussions of a new TV rights deal signed last Christmas by Juventus and brokered by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, AC Milan and Mediaset owner, have stirred a debate about money, big business and the future of the football in the country.

Unhappy with the growing gulf in TV revenues, 14 Italian Serie A clubs have reacted angrily to Juventus new TV deal threatening to boycott games or send inferior teams on the pitch.

The EUR 248 million deal will see Mediaset broadcast the Juventus home matches in the next two years, banking the club with annual EUR 120 million - almost one quarter of the total TV rights revenues for the entire German Bundesliga.

The concerns come from the small clubs, who feel the competitive balance will forever be tipped in the favour of bigger clubs like Juventus, eliminating Serie A as a sporting contest. Since 1999, Italian clubs have been able to negotiate their own TV deals, a contrast to the procedure in the other four major European leagues (England, Germany, France, and Spain).

Fiorentina owner Diego Della Valle and Sampdoria president Riccardo Garrone have alleged Berlusconi with a conflict of interest, after Berlusconi’s political party Forza Italia blocked a proposal concerning a return to collective TV rights. Garrone also threatened to boycott games against Serie A’s biggest clubs: Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan. “Either we don't play matches against the big clubs or else we send youth teams out to play against them, killing off any interest the matches might have internationally,” Garrone declared.

Berlusconi denied the charges of conflict of interest and threatened to sue Garrone for slander. “The government line on football is to leave it alone, to not interfere,” he said in an interview on Sky Italia.

“This is an internal problem of Italy but it serves as an interesting model for other countries where existing central marketing systems are under discussion,” Giorgio Marchetti, UEFA’s director of professional football, commented in uefa.com.

“I think the imbalance in the Italian first division is one of the highest in Europe, certainly not comparable to England, Germany or France where the leagues negotiate rights and distribute the money,” Marchetti said. “In England the Premier League is an extremely good example of keeping a balance in selling the TV rights and distributing money, while being commercially so successful.”

Marchetti also said that new technology, such as satellites and the Internet, could make the imbalance even greater. "In football, we cannot say there was a golden time when all clubs had an equal chance to win, but in the past there were more chances for all clubs to compete,” he said. “In Italy the big clubs could fill their stadium with 70,000 people, while the smaller ones would get 20,000; but now the virtual stadium gives the bigger clubs the possibility of an audience of millions, or even billions, while the smaller clubs have only thousands, even on TV."

"Clubs are all limited companies, and in some cases public limited companies which mean they have obligations towards their shareholders to maximise their revenue and their profits,” Marchetti said. “But this has to be made compatible with the needs and the logic of football and we cannot put the economic interests of clubs above sporting interests.”

Italian minister for communication Mario Landolfi met with the under-secretary of state in charge of sport, Mario Pescante, the Italian Football Federation president Franco Carraro and representatives of TV channels, urging them to find a solution.