Not an easy job of joints taking into account the needs of CioFifa, Uefa, clubs and TV that pay and keep the football circus going. He tries – and almost always succeeds, even if complaints are inevitable – Andrea Butti, head of competitions and operations from the Serie A Leaguea League increasingly projected towards the future with the president Lorenzo Casini and the CEO Luigi De Siervo, the first is more political, the second is more managerial. Butti relies not only on the yellow post it notes behind his desk in Milan, but also on his experience and knowledge of international rules. Let’s go in order. Two very complicated seasons are coming for the Serie A championship, the gigantism of Fifa and UEFA in the desperate search for new competitions and therefore new earnings certainly does not help in a calendar that is already so crowded.
2024-25 season, the next one: (see Spy Calcio of 27 December): UEFA, to ward off the danger of the Super League, has revolutionized the European competitions, from the Champions League (4 more teams than now) to the Europa League and the Confederations. More games and more money: there could already be an Italian derby in September, given that the Country Protection will be cancelled, and it will also be played in January (21,22 and 29). The next Serie A championship will start on 17 August 2024 and end on 26 May 2025. Also on the pitch on 29 December. In such a packed calendar, there will only be one midweek round (Wednesday 30 October) and this is a great result achieved by the League. Of course, there is very little room left for possible recoveries but now, and who knows if it’s lucky…, it almost doesn’t snow anymore. Furthermore, there will still be the Super Cup, again in Arabia.
The 2025-26 season is even more complicated when we face an absolute novelty, the maxi-World for a club invented by FIFA, scheduled at the end of the season and which brings a lot of money, even 50 million, into the coffers of each club that participates. In 2025, from 15 June to 13 July, the USA will therefore feature 32 teams from all over the world, 12 from Europe (Inter and Juve for Italy) divided into 8 groups of 4 (4 groups with 2 European and 4 with one). Of the 12 European teams, at least 10 could reach the round of 16. The final is scheduled for July 13th (we don’t know where yet, but perhaps in the East, New York or surrounding areas). The European Leagues have not provided any particular exceptions for clubs that have to play in the final. For example, if Inter and Juve were to play the final on 13 July, they would still be forced to play the first match of the championship on the established date, i.e. 17 or more likely 28 August. No postponements. They organized themselves with a large roster. Of course, you play a lot. Too. The European Leagues, including the Italian one, will meet on 25 and 26 April to study whether it is possible to sue FIFA, turning to the European Court for abuse of a dominant position. The end of the 2025-26 Serie A championship is scheduled for May 24th because the national teams involved in the FIFA World Cup (Canada, United States, Mexico) must be released on June 1st, which starts on June 11th 2026 and lasts a month.
Another problem to be addressed: the inauguration of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics is scheduled for 6 February 2026 at San Siro and the IOC wants to have the stadium available for at least a month, the whole of January, to stage the show. Inter and Milan would therefore be forced to play at least three rounds of the championship away from home and one of the Champions League or Europa League where they are likely to be able to qualify. A lot of damage for the clubs (what to do with season tickets?) and for the fans. It is not easy to find suitable stadiums for the two Milanese clubs which have an average of 60-70,000 spectators and whose attendance is one of the factors for the distribution of TV rights according to the Melandri law. Reggio Emilia, home to Sassuolo, and Monza are close to Milan but small. Bari would also be good for a possible European match, with a UEFA exemption (and with the new regulation, as mentioned, there could already be Italian derbies in January…). Quite a puzzle to solve, but at least there’s some time ahead. It should be added that the mayor of Milan, Sala, has asked UEFA for the Champions League final in 2026 or 2027 (there are problems according to Minister Abodi). The calendars are exploding: the League is looking for a way out of this in a better world.
Milan-Cortina Foundation, costs rising
The board of directors of the Milano Cortina 2026 Foundation, meeting today in the headquarters of the organizing committee, at the Allianz Tower in Milan, unanimously confirmed the lifetime budget for 2026. Today’s passage is fundamental for the formal presentation of the 2023 financial statements which should happen in the next board of directors. Detailed analyzes of the Olympic and Paralympic event continued throughout 2023 with the aim of better understanding all the operational components of the project. Despite the impact of inflationary phenomena and persistent international geopolitical tensions, the lifetime budget of the next Winter Games presents an economic-financial break-even and does not differ, net of inflation, from that hypothesized in the candidacy dossier, around 1 .6 billion euros. The slight mirror increase in costs and revenues is attributable to the impact of some value in kind (VIK) components of the sponsorship agreements signed during 2023. The Organizing Committee, after an in-depth analysis, is aware that obtaining this result will only be possible through careful and constant work to improve the efficiency of the organization and redefining the level of services offered, a topic which has already been addressed and shared with IOC, IPC and all stakeholders.
Abodi: “European Championships 2032, no stadium is to be taken for granted”
“The government will make further tools available, in the next few weeks we will set up the organizing body which will have to worry, in collaboration with a technical table, about creating the conditions to choose the 5 stadiums in 2026. It seems like a lifetime ahead, but there is little time left and then we will be able to work even harder until 2032 to make Italy completely hospitable for a major event like the European football championships that we will share with Turkey. No stadium is taken for granted, apart from probably Turin, even Rome and Milan will need further improvements”: thus the Minister for Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodi, on the sidelines of the second in-person appointment for the 2023/24 edition of Sky Up The Edit, held at the ‘Elsa Morante’ high school in Scampia. “Naples, where we are today, is another reality that has all the characteristics to be able to apply, but it must do its part quickly because the stadium does not have the characteristics to host a competition in which we hope for welcoming, hospitable, accessible stadiums, with a lot of technology and I also hope for stadiums that can produce energy, as well as consume it. There is still a long way to go.”
Nepi: “We work to get kids off the sofa”
“Our aim is to develop sport in Italy. We can’t just win medals. We are in the G8 in the world for medals, but we are at the bottom when it comes to sporting activity, the promotion of sport as inclusion, as social value, as an aggregator of a system that manages to create belonging”: this is what declared Diego Nepi Molineris, CEO of Sport and Health, during his speech during the seventh edition of “Well@Work – A holistic vision of well-being”, organized by HRC Group in collaboration with Sport and Health. “We understood that our first enemy was the 75% childhood dropout rate, which led to an increase in childhood obesity to 9% in Italy. We realized we needed to focus on prevention. This is why we started working on the facilities to bring kids closer to sport. We work to get kids off the couch and into a sports facility. We understood that where there is low education and low incomes, sport is not played. And so we must intervene there and invest in public systems. To give kids what they ask for and need to do sports.”
Memorandum of understanding between the Lombardy Region and the Bowls Federation
The president of the Italian Bowls Federation, Marcus Giunio De Saintsand the undersecretary of the Lombardy Region with responsibility for sports and youth, Lara Magoni, have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at regulating mutual collaboration to jointly carry out promotional initiatives of common interest in the Lombardy area. The memorandum of understanding is aimed at creating common and coordinated synergies for the valorisation of initiatives linked to the world of sport and bowls, in particular by promoting sports culture and other initiatives to support active ageing. The objective is to promote sporting growth in the Lombardy region and improve the health conditions of the elderly. According to the protocol, the Lombardy Region will support sporting events and major events, included in the process leading up to the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. “We have signed – declared De Sanctis – an agreement with the Lombardy Region, organizing today an important event in Piazza Città di Lombardia, aimed at publicizing our world in the best possible way and demonstrating that bowls is a sport with great social, inclusive and competitive values”. “Through this agreement – continued De Sanctis – scholarships will also be activated, to be assigned, upon recommendation by the FIB, to its best athletes. An important economic contribution to be allocated to young people, women or disabled people”. Another very important objective for the FIB is the reopening, in the shortest possible time, of the Municipal bowling green of Cream.
#Serie #grip #Club #World #Cup #Olympics
– 2024-04-01 17:30:54
