Dead my arse. In transition more like.

1. THere are a number of big teams in Serie B. Juventus, Napoli, Genoa, Bologna, etc etc all of which have higher average attendances in Serie B than a lot of Prmeiership teams. Napoli alone drew a crowd of 55,000 to a Serie C match and 75,000 to a Serie B match this season.

2. Money wise, Serie A is still well ahead of La Liga which is essentially a two team league.

3. WHile the stadiums are in bad nic, if Italy get to host Euro 2012, quite a few renovations and new stadiums are to be built at 12 locations not to mention a number of other stadiums which will have to be renovated due to these teams kicking up a fuss.

4. Serie A had the 3rd highest amount of players at the world cup after England and Germany with Spain in 4th.

5. Italy are in 2nd place in the UEFA Co-Efficient rankings above England who are in 3rd place.

6. If you knew anything about Italian football you'd know that there are quite a few decent youth footballers coming up through the system such as Aquilani at Roma and Rosina at Torino.

7. The Finanical crisis that rocked the game about 3 or 4 years ago is subsiding. Napoli have rebuilt. Lazio have restructured and are now financially stable. Roma have made giant leaps forward, now reducing their debt substantially largely based on a young exciting squad.

8. Italy has one of the highest number of Italians playing in their league. This is unlike in England where English players are no in the minority compared to foreigners.

9. Unlike in England, Italian stadiums still have atmosphere. Just go to a match in the San Siro and you'll know what I mean, unlike the awful new Emerates Stadium.

10. Italian Football is now the most followed football league in China. Given the growth of the Chinese economy, who knows what the TV rights will be like in a few years.

11. All the Italian clubs are owned either by Italians or Italian companies. This compared to the Premiership where a new fad of foreigners are coming in and buying up clubs.

Finally, you sir are not Italian. You are clearly an English person here on a bashing trip. Each League has its ups and downs. Serie A is now coming out of its worst down ever. Remember the period after Heysel. Considering whats happening in England with Attendances falling, apathy shown towards all the foreigners in English teams and a sense of seperation from the clubs, not to mention all the potential risk of a mass withdrawl of foreign ownership, be very careful about who and what you bash.

Serie A has suffered over the past few years from year on year declines in stadium attendances, poor television coverage, stadium violence, racism, and of course the massive match fixing scandal and it pains me to admit it because I love serie a, I really do, but it is no longer the best league in europe and arguably not even in the top three. But these things that I have just mensioned, what I call diseases of our game, the poor attendances, violence, racism and the scandal, these are all curable. The Italian FA must deal with these diseases, swiftly, fully and effectively.

If they take control of these matters I have no doubt that once the match fixing scandal is completely over and in the past, the hooligans are banished and the stadiums are vastly improved for the fans, then the match attendances would slowly but steadily increase which would bring the roaring crowds back, players would find playing in Italy more attractive and television broadcastors would find serie a more appealing and less of a risk.

It's going to take a hell of a lot of hard work from everyone involved and a long time to put things right, but I beleive that things can and eventually will be put right.

Italian football is not dead, but it is in a very deep sleep.

I've had a few beers, so apologies if this doesn't make sense but...

Italian football appeals to intelligent people. It has intelligent players, sexy goals, the best players and the best satisfaction guaranteed. If you're ever in doubt of someone's intellect, ask them how they feel about calcio. Chances are if they like it they're clever, if they dislike it they're thick. Geeneralisation, of course, but it's true.

From past experiences of chatting with premiership fans on other sites I have to say that that seems to be the case il ferret.

quote:

Originally posted by ITALIA1:

quote:

Originally posted by myles2:

quote:

Originally posted by ITALIA1:
As I said Italian football is third best in europe. You could even say that German football is better because of the quality of stadium and fans that actually go and watch football,not like in Italy when the stadiums are half empty.

Exactly!!! Everytime i go to a game i always look around the stadium for the whole 90 minutes, it's great fun. Sometimes i glance at the game on the pitch too if i'm bored.

So by that you don't care that the stadiums are a joke and that the stadiums are half empty.

The football is incredible boring with all the best players in England or Spain and unfortunatly I can see KAKA going as well.
On top of this no quality italian players are coming through.

boring?? I think you are mistaking Serie A for the shambles that is the English Premier League. Long Ball anyone??
And the 2006 World Cup was far from the worst WC ever. I think the 2002 WC easily claims that accolade

I thought it was a pretty good world cup. Not as good as 94 but much better than 2002. I think it's down to the fact that quite a few nations underperformed. I'm just happy that Italy won it.

On the subject of falling attendances, let's not forget that two premiership teams(Wigan and Blackburn) are drastically lowering their prices for the remainder of the season in the hope of attracting more people to go to their games. Then, last night on MOTD they were saying how thousands of Man City fans boycotted yesterdays game because of high ticket prices. And even Chelsea have had to advertise their CL game in the paper in the hope of trying to fill the stadium, If I'm not mistaken the game was against Barca . So it's not only Serie A thats suffering falling attendances.

I was thinkin' recently of the reasons behind the low serie a attendances compared to premiership games and with Juventus in particular of the last few years. Now I have never been to Italy before but could one of the reasons be that the people who live in Turin/Rome etc have more alternatives regarding entertainment and leisure? For instance, in many cities in the UK, there is barely anything to do and all people have is their football team. They attend week in week out partly for the reason that they have nothing else. Sorry, I'm blabbing on a bit, but do you know what I'm getting at?

Is the doofus who started this thread the same @sswipe who was on here before the WC telling us all about how bad the Italian players were, they would never win anything, no skill, blah, blah, blah....

Bite me

for too long the people running football clubs have seen it as a license to print easy money,assuming that the deluded supporters will endlessly endure inflation-busting price rises.Thankfully,i think we're beginning to see this situation coming to an end.
I think Serie A doesnt have a huge amount to worry about playing wise-i would argue that they still(along with la liga)get the best players at the right time,eg-Milan had the real Shevchenko,Chelsea paid a fortune for the has been.This season is a bit flat as Inter are going to power to the title due to their strong squad but Milan will come back soon in future seasons as will(i hate to say it)Juve.
The Italians need to do something about fan trouble though-they wont get people back to the stadiums until they feel safe going.
Finally as regards the world cup-Italy deserved to win.They had a couple of slices of luck in the tournament but which winner doesnt need that.They were consistantly the best team in Germany and deserved to be winners and as far as im concerned its the first world cup since 1990 where that has been the case

quote:

Originally posted by Duncan!:
Is the doofus who started this thread the same @sswipe who was on here before the WC telling us all about how bad the Italian players were, they would never win anything, no skill, blah, blah, blah....

Bite me

I think he is.

I see he is still a doofus

quote:

doofus

What a great word!

quote:

Originally posted by ITALIA1:
blah blah blah KAKA blah blah blah

Its annoying that you only write Kaka in capitals and no other words...all or nothing sir, all or nothing...PERIOD!

I wonder why he even calls himself Italia, as if we are unable to see through his deception. He should rather call himself Anti-Italia, as he's always having a dig at italian football and never anything positive about it. Even when Italy win the WC, he's got nothing positive to say other than ridicule the tournament. England would have been making so much noise had they even reached the semi's let alone win it. Please refer to the 1966 finals, it was the most controversial final in living memory but yet still England pride themselves as world champions. I wasn't going to bother about this post, but I think some of you have contributed some very good points. Italian football is not dead, its slightly gone off the boil as compared to yesteryer, but still simmering in the background. The standard of football in Serie A is still better quality overall than in the premiership not forgetting goals scored. Obviously, only the neutrals will objectively accept the merits of Serie A over the premiership except the myopic English media. Afterall some years ago, when the italian clubs were so dominant, the english media were still claiming the premiership was the best....exciting league in the world etc