The Downfall of the Serie A !!!

Hi Juventini and in fact any supporter of the Serie A this is a special blog focusing on what has happened to the Serie A and why. This blog is dedicated to our Twitter followers from @bianconerinewz as our account was down for just over a week and we have decided to dedicate this special blog to make up for our time away.

The Serie A in its Prime

In the 1980's and 90's the Serie A was the greatest league in the world by far. It was so good that even if the Barclays Premier League of today was around then the Serie A would still be ten times better. AC Milan had the likes of Van Basten, Juventus had Platini and Zidane meanwhile arguably the best player ever Diego Maradona even played in the Serie A with Napoli. Every team looked up to the teams in the Serie A and its dominance was huge with an Italian team being in every Champions League final from 1989 to 1998 except from once. This is a remarkable record and I doubt this will ever be matched. So just 15 years ago Serie A was easily the best league in the world but why is it now rated the fourth best league in the world.

                                       Stars Leaving

In England during the time of Zidane at his peak the Barclays Premier League, which is the best league in the world at the moment was beginning to rise and stars from around Europe began leaving for England meanwhile over in Spain the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona began receiving money and therefore big stars were leaving for the big bucks. This obviously affected the Serie A and this was the beginning of the downfall. The biggest move away from the Serie A was Zidane to Madrid and this soon became a trend for players in the Serie A to leave for England and Spain. At first these transfers were not seen to be able to affect the league however it did and it did a lot. For starters many of the big stars were leaving the Serie A which lead to quality being lost but ultimately the top players were not being attracted to the Serie A but joining the Premier League or the La Liga. This meant that not only were players losing interest in the league because of the quality players but also fans around the world were losing interest.

Calciopoli Scandal

In 2006 the top Italian teams were struggling to compete with the big English and Spanish clubs who had a lot of money to spend but that was the least of their problems when the Calciopoli Scandal was released. It was uncovered in May 2006 when Italian Police had found a big network of relations between team managers and Serie A referees. This had been found through intercepted telephone calls with Juventus being the main culprits while other big Italian clubs such as Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio were also proved guilty. Juventus were given the biggest punishment by being relegated to Serie B and having nine points deducted and also had two Serie A titles taken away meanwhile other teams found guilty were given points deducted for the upcoming season. This scandal effected the Serie A a huge amount and it is no surprise why people believe this is the main reason to the downfall of the Serie A. Many of the players at the guilty clubs especially Juventus left for more chance of success. Juventus were left in a terrible position as many of the high profile players such as Ibrahimovic, Cannavaro and Thuram all left. Overall this effected the league a huge amount as not only were the few big stars leaving making the the Premier League and La Liga stronger but also making the Serie A weaker. Many fans lost respect for the teams involved in the scandal and probably the biggest disappointment was that the best Italian team Juventus had been relegated and were not able to compete for trophies in Europe and Serie A for a long time.

                                                     Tessera Del Tifoso

In 2009 an Identification card was produced to identify fans from specific clubs. This card is used too buy tickets to watch football games and contains all personal information. The card is then checked by police at the entrance of the stadium. It was created to prevent a problem in Italian football, which is Hooliganism however it has done anything but that. Fans are outraged at the use of the card and in fact the card has not helped prevent hooliganism one bit. Rather than helping Italian football it has in fact damaged it even more with crowd attendance dropping immensely with the average attendance being around 23,500 which is terrible compared to the Premier League which has an average attendance of around 34,500 that is around 11,000 more fans a game. 

Serie A on the rise again !!

Despite the recent problems the Serie A has had it is on the rise again. The most successful Italian team Juventus have finally recovered from its relegation to Serie B and are starting to look like a real force after winning two consecutive Serie A's and are even competing in Europe once again. The lack of money in the league has almost had a positive side effect as great new talent is emerging such as Balotelli, El Shaarawy and Paul Pogba which can only lead to great success for Italy and the Serie A once again.