the interview
«Nobility by birthright instead of merit. They wanted to take us back to before the French Revolution, but they miscalculated because the fans, who are their customers, want more. The free market in football does not work ». To say it is not a nostalgic for the times of the radio and “All football minute by minute”, but Carlo Cottarelli, who in his life was executive director of the board of the International Monetary Fund. In his head he has a different model of football, which he is working on with Interspac, the association with which he dreams of making his Inter the first major Italian club with at least partly popular shareholding.
What is your idea of the Super Lega project?
«An arrogant act on the part of clubs who thought they could control football as they pleased, without making any other considerations. Neither emotional nor cultural. And I would even say economic: the popular reaction that has been unleashed tells us that the one who does not want that product is first of all those who should have bought it. If we had made the Super League a hundred years ago, now we would see Genoa-Pro Vercelli every week ».
But football is imploding. Florentino Perez, president of Real Madrid, says there is no time for a reform that starts in three years: they don’t get there alive. And he says that young people ask for big events and don’t know what parochialism is.
«The generational theme is there, after all young people have fewer memories. But if you offer Milan-Real every week, after a while they get tired too. So the theme is redesigning the system. But a response that displeases the vast majority of fans is obviously ineffective ».
And how is such a particular sector redesigned?
“There is a conjunctural problem, Covid. And then there is the structural one. Football has always lost money and lives thanks to patrons who are no longer enough. I believe that urgency is the salary cap for the players ».
All difficult operations if the agents are in charge. Last year the two most important prosecutors, Jorge Mendes and Mino Raiola, pocketed nearly $ 200 million according to Forbes. They do not produce value, rather they subtract from it, and push wages to unsustainable levels. Whose turn is it to limit them?
«Do you see why the free market does not hold up in football and the attempt to transform it into a company like any other has failed? In any other sector, no company would pay salaries that it cannot afford: otherwise, according to a market principle, it would fail, which is not the case in football. Here comes the passion, the dream of winning and acquiring the stars. And so debts pile up. This is why football must give itself rules: ceiling on salaries and commissions of agents. And bet on popular shareholding ».
Andrea Agnelli in recent months had said: “Serie A must rely on private investment funds because we managers have failed.”
«There is a model to copy: Bayern Munich wins and their accounts are in order. It is no coincidence that it is not for profit and does not have an American property that looks after profit like almost all the promoters of the Super League. Bayern is controlled by the fans through popular shareholding: it is the way to keep the emotional aspects and sustainability together. The patron alone can’t take it anymore, so let’s really let the fans in charge ».
Real Madrid and Barcelona have popular ownership and yet they are in pieces.
“In addition to the models, who manages them counts: Perez, for example, has fueled the race of salaries rather than governing the club in a virtuous way”.
In recent days, Uefa and Fifa have embraced the flag of “football for fans” against that of profit. The pulpit from which the sermon comes is not credible: they are two very rich organizations, crossed by scandals, they live thanks to the investments of the clubs and at the same time play as regulators and players in the sector.
«In fact, the sense of the Super Lega operation seems to me above all a rebalancing between the club, Fifa and Uefa. But I doubt that the way to get it is a press release at midnight announcing that the system of world football will be dismantled and the elimination of meritocracy ».
Governments across Europe also got in the way. Why?
“They didn’t even agree on a line, it was spontaneous. The destruction of values shared by public opinion was too evident ».
A 30 billion European industry is jumping, governments will have to take care of it as well as saying ‘no’.
«It will have to be done in a spirit of collaboration. Everyone must question themselves, starting with the clubs for management and the players for salaries. But the lesson is clear: football belongs to the fans, without them you can’t decide. My daughter supports West Ham. The hymn says: “I’m forever blowing bubbles”, that is “I always blow soap bubbles in the air”. European football is this. If you think it is a normal company, you are going to crash ». –
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