Serie A not interesting, concedes Agnelli

Rome, April 27 (IANS)

President Juventus FC Andrea Agnelli looks on during the Serie A match Juventus FC v AC Milan at Juventus Arena on April 21, 2013 in Turin, Italy.

Juventus president Andrea Agnelli has conceded that the Italian Serie A has become uninteresting and a stepping-stone to bigger things for footballers.

Juventus have run away with the league this season, and could win the Scudetto this weekend if they beat Torino and Napoli lose to Pescara. But they did not perform well in the Champions League as they were knocked out by Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, and the owner has admitted that Italian football cannot compete with teams from other leagues in Europe, reports Xinhua.

The 37-year-old cited the development of the Premier League as an example for Italian football to follow, particularly in terms of budget.

“Is Italian football interesting to watch today?” he told the Financial Times Friday. “Half the stadiums are empty, there is violence. I mean, it’s not the best product.”

“You are reading messages in Chinese across all Premier League stadia. We access multinational companies, but we access their local budgets. We want to be talking to their headquarters.”

“Unfortunately, times have changed,” he said. “Now Serie A is a transition. English teams have the ability to merchandise, Spain have the freedom to sell their own TV rights and there are great corporate sponsorship deals in Germany. Our bureaucracy is too cast. It took me 10 years to get the okay for our own stadium.”