While the Professional Football League’s call for tenders for its TV rights ended with another resounding failure, Italy also has its problems in this area. If in France none of the lots were awarded, due to lack of convincing offers, on the other side of the Alps the problem is completely different. Indeed, it’s official, the Lega Serie A has allocated its television rights for the period 2024-2029 to sky And Dazn. The assembly of the Italian National Professional League ended with 17 votes in favor, 1 abstention and 2 against. Among the latter, the president of Napoli, Aurelio De Laurentiis, expressed his disagreement by not mincing his words as he usually does. “It’s a defeat for Italian football, with this offer football will die”declared the transalpine businessman in particular, interrupting the press conference of the president of the Lega Serie A, Luigi De Siervo, at the end of the meeting.
Aurelio De Laurentiis, visibly very upset, then expressed his disappointment with the Italian supporters. “Sky and Dazn are not competent, they are not good for Italian football. Italian football always thinks that it must be supported by others, but the supporter is the absolute good of a football club. My relationship with the supporters must be direct, not indirect with Sky or Dazn. My colleagues in the championship like to be passive in the system, I have never done that and I hate it…”said the owner of Napoli before concluding on his second passion, cinema: “then there is the madness of signing a five-year contract. In times of crisis, cinema and football are two things that work well: they are the panacea for the pains of daily life, but we have put this dream in the drawer. The entrepreneur must know how to measure the risk zone, it is more comfortable but it will never implement the value of Italian football. The value of Italian football comes through investments. Sky and Dazn don’t.” The message has gotten through!
