Help needed for poor relations

By Paolo Menicucci

A restructuring of the Italian League could help solve the crisis currently affecting football in southern Italy.

Glory days
Times have changed since SSC Napoli's glory days of the 1980s, when the 'Ca-Ma-Ca' trio of Careca, Diego Maradona and Andrea Carnevale brought home two league titles in four seasons. In the years following that second championship success of 1990, there has been little to cheer either for Napoli or for the region's other clubs.

Heroes to zeroes
The former have endured two relegations from Serie A and are now fighting for survival in Serie B following their second demotion in 2001. The only consolation can be that they have neighbours for company - with Catania Calcio, AS Bari, Cosenza Calcio and Salernitana Sport joining them in the second tier's bottom five places.

North and south
Indeed, Reggina Calcio are the south's only representative among the élite, and the fact they lie fourth from bottom of Serie A underlines the huge disparity in strength and financial resources between north and south.

Cash crisis
Juventus FC and AC Milan, Calcio's two most successful clubs, are owned by two of Italy's richest and most powerful families - the Agnellis and the Berlusconis. In the under-developed south, however, wealthy entrepreneurs ready to stump up the cash to build trophy-winning teams are thin on the ground. Likewise advertisers and sponsors in an area of 18 per cent unemployment - a rate four times higher than in the north - where families have about 38 per cent less to spend each month than in cities like Milan and Turin.

Regional leagues
This situation has led the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) to discuss changes to the league's format in a bid to boost the game in the south. The likelihood is that Serie A will remain the same, but the FIGC, headed by president Franco Carraro, could pursue the idea of splitting Serie B into two regional divisions of 12 teams, where currently there is one national division of 20. With two of the four promotion places going to each group, it would guarantee southern representation in the top flight.

Northern monopoly
"I think this idea is logical because there is no other country in Europe with such a huge economic difference between north and south. We must do something to prevent football at the highest level becoming possible only for northern clubs," Carraro said.

Financial fears
However, the initiative is sure to meet with opposition. Adriano Galliani, president of the Italian League, the Lega Calcio, is thought to believe that a split competition would only widen the financial gap between north and south. Galliani has the backing of US Città di Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini, who said: "I think it will be a disaster for all the teams in Serie B. In my opinion it would be better to play one season in Serie C than to play in a poor quality Serie B. No sponsor would be interested in investing money in a championship of that kind."

Hotting up
Whatever the outcome, it promises to be a long, hot summer as the arguments go on over how best to bring the good times back to southern Italy.