The suggestions were discreetly published in a 17-page report, structured into three columns; idea, inspiration and initiator. The first column details the proposal itself, the second says who they stole it from and the third tells us whose responsibility it is to get the idea going.
The document echoed a very similar one by Greg Dyke, president of the English Football Association (FA) which was also published over summer and highlighted concrete areas for improvement and suggestions for action in the English leagues. Now thus far the Italian federation (FIGC) president Alberto Tavecchio, Dyke’s Italian counterpart, has not put his name to such a document and it may be prudent to wonder whether the two club presidents’ proposals will have any real effect.
READ ALSO Why Italian football has to hark back to Belgium and Germany / Change or die: 8 steps to rejuvenate Italian football
However we must be reminded of who these presidents are; Andrea Agnelli, the latest of a long line of influential Juventus leaders and Claudio Lotito who has already made himself friendly with the new-look FIGC even in the two or so months since Tavecchio’s election (actually, Lotito was the best sponsor of Tavecchio and many critics say that Lazio's president is the real FIGC president). The report should hold some significant sway as the Italian federation looks to imitate the success of Belgium, Germany and Spain as pioneers of grassroots football.
1. B Teams & Strategic Loan Partnerships. A top-level club with a rough young diamond at the moment has three options.
1) Put him in your first team squad and effectively sit him on the bench for the entire season.
2) Send him out on loan to another club for a few months to a year.
This can often work well especially if the youngster can play at a high level (such as Romelu Lukaku at Everton last year or Stefano Sturaro at Genoa this year). However there have been issues where loanees are being treated at the recipient club in a way that the parent club disagrees with, as with Gerard Deulofeu at Sevilla this season – the parent club Barcelona B was unhappy with their youngster spending so much time on the bench, but unfortunately they have no control over that.
Another problem is that training complexity and sport science technology at some smaller clubs is so far behind the big players’ facilities that clubs are sceptical of the value of loaning for the development of their young players.
3) [in England] Put him in the U21 league where the first-team selection experience is severely diminished and the brightest stars can be held back.
England says… …set up a Strategic Loan Partnership wherein the number of players a team can loan from one club is increased. It would be an official, ‘special’ relationship between a team from the top two divisions with up to two teams from the lower divisions. This would also generate clearer dialogue, demands and exchange of ‘know-how’ between parent clubs and loan clubs.
…create another professional league below League 2 for B teams, that is to say, youth teams of first and second division clubs, where effectively an U21 team faces real adult teams fighting for real season objectives.
Italy says… …revise the current laws on multi-ownerships of clubs by the same owner, which would generate relaxed rules on the transfer of players between the two clubs outside of the transfer windows. The document also briefly mentions the possibility of inserting “satellite clubs” into Serie D for similar purposes to the B team movement.
Critics say… ...that the B teams would patronise and hinder lower league football, drawing in threadbare crowds and taking away the value of the existing clubs’ achievements by simply putting new teams in where adult sides have battled to belong. Since the proposals in England were released, League 2 sides have reacted with fury and a dash of good humour (Accrington Stanley FC tweeted, “to increase the number of English players in the top flight we’re going to launch a B team and apply to join the Premier League”). In anticipation of such objections and more, Lotito and Agnelli plan to give the Lega Pro sides a louder voice by affording the lower "Leghe" (leagues) greater weight in inter-league meetings and more electoral power.
2. Foreign Player Regulation. One problem which is more prevalent in England than in Italy is that mediocre players from South Korea, Argentina, Brazil and other non-EU countries are being flown in to fill up places that European counterparts could just as easily produce. Now both Italy and England are attempting to crack down on the work permit system and decrease the flow of players from non-European leagues.
The objective is not to exclude players who are from other continents – it would not affect those who take up permanent residence in Europe, only players who are applying for shorter-term permits. This (in theory) separates the ambitious from the opportunistic, the worthy from the unworthy, the grain from the chaff.
England says… …crank up the legislation on non-EU players (even Africa and South America) in three ways. Firstly, only Premier League clubs can take on players from outside the EU and only over a high wage threshold and minimum transfer fee (“either they are of exceptional talent or they are not.”) Secondly, a club could not loan a non-EU player to another club. Thirdly, there would be a cap on the number of non-EU players that any club can have.
Italy says… …require that players applying for a work permit (i.e. non-EU players) pass a test of footballing prowess before being allowed their visa whilst making it easier for players born in Italy to foreign parents to gain nationality. This means that people such as Stephan El Shaarawy and Hachim Mastour, despite not having the most Italian-sounding names, are easily eligible for the national team.
3. Home-Grown Opportunities & National Team Crisis.
The Problem. Instead of going through the costly process of scouting and developing youth players in their own nation, many clubs and not only the top ten are simply looking abroad, either to established foreign footballers or to better youth setups, for their summer recruits. The locals and the youth products are gradually squeezed out of the potential squad openings because of the exaggerated number of imports.
In England this means that although the Premier League is arguably the best in the world (in terms of individual player quality and depth across the league), the English national team is all but out of the running when it comes to the Euros and the World Cup – because the potential English players were neglected by top clubs at an early stage and had their development halted. The situation in Italy is possibly a little better but the last two World Cups have caused some to wonder if that is still true.
England says… …forcibly increase the number of HGPs ([British] Home Grown Players) in every Premier League squad. In UEFA competitions it is currently required that a certain quota of the declared squad is “club trained”; that is, brought up in the club’s own youth sector. Greg Dyke would like to replicate that regulation for the Premier League as well to add to the current rulings that require a numerical bias to British national players.
Italy says… ...reward (financially) when a club invests in youth development and club-trained players of any nationality. This would come alongside a huge redevelopment of the national youth footballing system that would see a network of footballing ‘schools’ or development centres run by FIGC across the country. This is in the model of the DFB and the FFF (Germany and France) who set up hundreds of such centres.
…introduce a league quota of Italian players to each top-flight club. Yet the crucial thing for Lotito and Agnelli was not to limit the number of foreign players that a club can recruit, but to incentivise the use of home-grown and national players.
Critics say… …that the forcible increase of home-grown players (Dyke wanted a maximum of 12 foreign players in a 25-man squad by 2021) would heavily hinder the competitiveness of the teams in Europe, because the teams are not recruiting the best global talents – only the best talents from one country and a few foreign afterthoughts.
The bombshell. And it is here that it becomes evident that the proposals for change are heavily centred around one key thing – the fate of the Azzurri. It is at this point that the most heads were turned in the writing of this document, because the change detailed is so revolutionary and yet so inspiringly ambitious that it breaks free from parallels with the FA proposals into a more daring field.
1. Revolution at Coverciano. Lotito and Agnelli would relaunch Coverciano, the home of the Italian Nazionale, with a new academy for evaluation, formation and selection “laboratory of footballing excellence” with a museum and a manager that would stamp its cultural and historical importance while making it the epicentre for national youth development centres as detailed about – the beating heart in the “capillary system across the land”.
After the recent scandal with defender Giorgio Chiellini being recalled to his squad halfway through international break, Agnelli thought it expedient to inscribe into law an improvement of dialogue between the Nazionale and clubs, such as increased compensation in case of a long-term injury suffered on international service.
2. Slimming Down Serie A & B. In a bold and shocking move, Tavecchio himself along with the two club presidents declared their desire that next year Serie A and B would be put on a trajectory that would reduce the league size to 18 teams each as the Bundesliga is formed to give more breathing space to cup competitions and most importantly to give international players more of a break (seen as the large majority of Azzurri are called from the Italian league).
3. Media Makeover. The revolution of the Nazionale involves new commercial frontiers such as revised sponsoring and licensing agreements in particular a league-centralised broadcasting rights agreement, the same as the Premier League’s, that would begin to bridge the gap between the league giants’ matchday income and the smaller sides’. At the moment, each club sells their individual broadcasting rights. The social media front would also receive a facelift with evolved legislation on the FIGC Youtube and Twitter pages, with a view to getting more income and crucially attention from the digital world.
4. Internal Financial Fair Play. Policing In continuation of the greater balance between larger and smaller clubs, there is a call for biased distribution of the broadcasting revenues not only in favour of the most-watched clubs but towards the least in-debt clubs – the better you balance your books over the year, the more you recoup from TV rights. To this end Lotito and Agnelli were keen to align European licensing laws (the conditions for a club to play in European cups) with Financial Fair Play laws, such that carelessly spendthrift clubs have the threat of a big red card from UEFA if they do not play fair. This would come in sync with a refurbishment of internal financial checks (so as not to rely on UEFA’s FFP checks).
5. Anti-Racism, Anti-Violence. More rewards would be up for grabs for clubs who set up educational or preventive workshops and initiatives to combat racism and violence. The incentivisation of the move would replace the current method of closing down sections of the stadium for fanbases involved in altercations.
The impetus for these programs would come from Coverciano and the FIGC itself – the network of national football centres would be the standard-bearers for clubs eager to take part in paving the way to acceptance and peace in Italian football. Follow @thatjemkid
Thursday, October 2 nd, 2014
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