Reducing the number of entrants will be the first step and the process will begin in the 2022/2023 championship. The goal is to introduce a final four in the top four in three years’ time
UDINE. From today there is no turning back. After 17 seasons with 20 teams (the enlargement is dated 2004-05), Serie A takes the path of reduction to 18 formations. And he begins to focus on the revolution of the Scudetto playoffs, never experienced before in the main European leagues. For the first time these changes have entered the agenda of the Lega Serie A assembly: «Analysis of the impacts on the hypothesis of changing the format of the Serie A championship», says point 4 of the schedule this afternoon. It should take three years to translate this into reality.
The clubs are supported by experts from the international consultancy firm Deloitte. The economic aspects, in fact, are central: from the distribution of TV rights with two fewer teams to the economic “parachute” for the two more relegated. The idea is to launch the double reform in the 2024-25 season. In fact, two adjustment championships will be needed to turn towards the 18 teams: 2022-23 and 2023-24. Impossible to apply the first adjustments to the next Serie A which will start in less than a month. We need an agreement with the other protagonists of Italian football. A meeting with all the components of the Football Association is scheduled for Friday. Federal President Gabriele Gravina inserts the decrease in Serie A teams in an overall discourse of greater economic sustainability of the entire movement, based on the cut of the companies of each category of professionalism.
The move to 18 formations implies a dialogue with League B. In France, where Ligue 1 has just dropped from 20 to 18 entrants, it has been established that in the 2022-23 season four teams will be relegated to Ligue 2, while only two will move up to Ligue 2. maximum division. It will not be easy to find a similar agreement in Italy.
In the approach of the experts, the Scudetto playoffs come after this intervention necessary to make the financial equilibrium of the football system more solid. The speech is the opposite for the fans, who are already divided between in favor and against this epochal turning point. At the moment we are thinking about a final phase with semifinals and final in the top four of the regular season. La Liga and Premier League are also studying a similar solution. National championships are looking for less obvious outcomes. The last 20 league titles have been won by only three teams: Juventus, Inter and Milan.
By moving to 18 teams, Serie A would have four days less, freeing up physical and mental energies that could help the clubs to return as protagonists in Europe. In the 17 seasons following the expansion to 20, our teams have won two Champions Leagues and remained dry in the Uefa Cup / Europa League. In the previous 16 years, with the championship at 18, they had lifted the Champions Cup five times and the Uefa Cup eight times, leaving out the three Cup Winners’ Cups (competition canceled in 1999). Fans can start dreaming of the crackling months of May with the scudetto play-offs and maybe the Italians again regulars in the European finals.
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