Italy’s Stadium Problem Explained

Why Italy’s football temples became relics, and what it will take to rebuild them and the game.

It has only been a month or so since the future of the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza seemed to be decided. The stadium will be sold to the clubs, allowing both Milan and Inter to decide whether to refurbish or demolish and start again. The latter seems more likely. Whether that progresses, and how quickly it does if so, is another question. The whole saga, though, is a symptom of one of Italian football’s many issues: infrastructure. With the European Championships in 2032 fast approaching (especially in the lens of stadium construction), Italian football stadia are a major talking point at the moment. And have been since the development of Italia ‘90, with many of the stadiums still being stuck in that era too.

UEFA President, Alexander Ceferin, said that Italy has “by far the worst infrastructure among the big countries”. And if you’ve been to a stadium recently that isn’t the Allianz Stadium or the New Balance Arena, you’d probably agree. I was at the Stadio Bentegodi last season to watch Hellas Verona play Inter from the Curva. The stadium hosted four games during the 1990 World Cup and has remained unchanged ever since. The concourses remain unchanged, as does the signage. Italia ‘90 mascot ‘Ciao’ can be spotted on the side of the facade, as can the logo for the World Cup. If you want a look back in time to the 90s, the Marcantonio Bentegodi in its current form is the ideal place. And the San Siro is the same. The stadium is 100 years old, and has been showing it for some time. Once the best cathedral of football in the country, now a thorn in the side of the Italian game’s progression. Echoing concrete, outdated concessions and fans starting to grumble, the San Siro is not fitting for two clubs with the stature and history of Inter and Milan.

How did we arrive at this point, though? Italy’s infrastructure is struggling for various reasons, but the history on which it was built and maintained lies as a main contributing factor. The majority of stadiums in the country will be municipality-owned, not club-owned. It means that many of these stadiums were built decades ago, and renovated decades ago (if ever). It’s a public works mindset, presenting stadiums as civic monuments rather than commercial sporting assets. The last country-wide redevelopment of infrastructure was for Italia ‘90, which is now over 35 years ago. Since then, it’s stood rather still apart from a few anomalies.

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Stadiums owned by councils or public bodies raise various challenges, and with roughly 90% having this ownership model, those are amplified when zooming out to discuss nationwide progression. It’s a tradition that stems back many years, leaving clubs reliant on local authorities. It limits a club’s ability to invest, commercialise or control matchday revenue. It prevents a club from owning the naming rights to sell for sponsorship revenue, reconfiguring stands for commercial growth, and reducing the flexibility of non-football events. Fiorentina have been playing in a building site at the Artemio Franchi for years, with completion still a way off, and the owner’s offer to refurbish the stadium at his own expense was rejected by the council years ago.

As always in Italy, bureaucracy ties stadium redevelopments up in red tape and locks them there like they’re doing life in prison. And because stadiums are state-owned, every decision becomes politically charged, with decisions potentially having a backlash on local elections and the like. To redevelop a stadium means going through layers and layers of approval from government entities, too. Municipal, regional, and environmental. The list goes on. Minor renovations can even take years, thanks to various checks needing to take place before ground can be broken. The San Siro saga in Milan has been ongoing for over six years, and we’re only at the stage of a sale being agreed between the city and clubs. Roma spent the best part of a decade on the Tor di Valle project, which was abandoned, with a new project being locked in red tape again. The approval process is so bad, Reuters are reporting that a special commissioner may be hired to fast-track developments as the country races against the clock to host Euro 2032. Desperation.

Revenue is a big talking point, too. In a time where Italian football is financially unstable and is falling behind the Premier League, increasing the amount of revenue streams and the amount of cash flowing down those streams is crucial to the survival and progression of the league. Reuters reported that Serie A clubs earned around €440m from matchday revenue in 23/24, less than half of the Premier League. In 2024, the Santiago Bernebeu also brought in 4x the revenue that San Siro did, showing the disparity between other top leagues’ infrastructure and Italy’s. The Juventus Stadium remains the only major club-owned stadium in the country, and remains the most modern and sits as perfect evidence of what can be done by reforming the current model. Clubs are missing out on huge amounts of cash, which is catastrophic for many, given how many bankruptcies we see across the country each season.

The road to Euro 2032 looks bleak. Italy is in a race against time to be in a position to host that tournament. It’s already damaging enough that they’re having to co-host it with Turkey. But to potentially be in a position where Milan, one of the biggest cities in Europe, may not host a game is disastrous. Momentum seems to be building, but we’re still no further forward. Roma and Lazio’s projects aren’t progressing, and there are doubts that the work on a new San Siro won’t be completed in time.

Something has to change. Time can’t stand still forever. It does seem, though, that a tide is turning. New Balance have just taken over the naming rights in Bergamo, proving a commercial gain for the club. Venezia have announced their plans for a new stadium on the mainland, moving away from the Stadio Penzo. Lazio are exploring leaving the Stadio Olimpico and building elsewhere. And Aurelio Di Laurentiis is pushing and pushing for Napoli to leave, or at least refurbish, the Stadio Diego Maradona. I will caveat that with: we’ve been here before.

The ideal stadium in Italy for progression of the game is a modern arena, fit for purpose, with a host of amenities on site that enhance the match-going experience for the fans who are, in the establishment’s eyes, tourists from elsewhere because they’ll spend more cash. Club-owned will be the way to progress, moving away from authority-owned and the bureaucracy that Italy is known for. If done right, stadiums can preserve the history, which is a concern for many, and start (or continue) community integration and engagement of new and young fans. Global audiences will always be a focus of the league and the governing bodies. To compete with the Premier League, global expansion is necessary. But no fan from Asia or the US will want to be pissing into a hole in the ground before collecting their half-time pint from a fold-out table, no matter how much I (and many others) love it that way.

Preserving what makes calcio so beautiful is crucial to any project. To do it right and to grow properly, the culture and the community need to remain intact. They can’t be neglected. It pains me to say this, as I love a rundown stadium full of character, but for the greater good of the game, Italian football’s infrastructure needs resuscitation. My concern lies in who is holding the defibrillator. If Italy wants to remain a big player in world football, the stadiums will play a big part in that. We can’t be in a position where the San Siro is having Champions League finals stripped away from it, and the country is having to host tournaments with the help of another, as it can’t handle it itself. For me, I will always want a stadium showing cracks. A Curva with missing seats. A pint at half-time from a guy and a table. I’d never want a stadium with a car dealership in it. I’m a football romantic, after all.

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