Serie A football, the chiagni e fotti of Urbano Cairo
The Meloni government is deaf to the cry for help from the world of football, shouts the president of Torino, Urbano Cairo, from the newspapers he owns (Corriere della sera and Gazzetta dello sport). But is he really right?
The State does not help the world of football. This is the cry of alarm launched by Urbano Cairo, president of Torino Calcio and RCS MediaGroup. Cairo took part in an informal meeting in Rome between the Serie A clubs and the FIGC president Gabriele Gravina. The theme of the meeting was sustainability, nurseries and stadiums were the themes. But not only. The Lega Serie A assembly is scheduled for January 26th, preparatory to the extraordinary assembly on March 11th which will kick off the reform of Italian football , with the reduction of clubs in the professional leagues.
URBAN CAIRO: “THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO FUCK THE WORLD OF FOOTBALL”
Urbano Cairo, at the end of the meeting, shot nothing down on the Government's actions towards the world of football. “It almost seems that the government, instead of supporting football, wants to destroy it. It's incredible – said Cairo after the round table in an interview with his own Corriere della Sera -. We have not had a cent of help from the State, despite having suffered enormous problems such as Covid, so much so that losses have increased exponentially. We should enjoy the tax credit like the cinema sector got, we weren't entitled to it."
URBANO CAIRO'S ACCUSATIONS ON THE FAILURE TO EXTEND THE GROWTH DECREE: DAMAGE TO FOOTBALL
Among the most critical points highlighted by President Cairo is the failure to extend the so-called "Growth" decree. The decree was approved by the Conte I government in 2019, to allow Italian workers who emigrated abroad to repatriate while being able to enjoy a significant tax relief: for two years they could pay taxes (the IRPEF, the personal income tax physical) on only 30 percent of their income, even reduced to 10 percent for those who decided to transfer their residence to a southern region.
The “Growth” decree was very useful for football clubs because the tax benefits did not only apply to Italian workers but also to workers of other nationalities. In this way it was more convenient for football teams to purchase players from abroad to whom they could offer a higher net salary for the same gross salary. “The State does not provide the slightest help, you have seen what happened with the growth decree which was also an advantage for the government – said President Cairo -: eliminating tax benefits for athletes has penalized our world without benefiting anyone ”. The failure to extend the decree, which the club presidents had asked to extend at least for the next transfer window (until 29 February 2024), eliminated all tax benefits starting from 1 January.
BETTING: THE REQUESTS OF SERIE A CLUBS AND THE RESPONSE OF MINISTER ABODI
Among the other topics discussed by Cairo is that of betting. “Then there is the issue of betting which is worth 16 billion euros, two of which end up in the state coffers: the teams do not collect a cent – said the Turin president -. Finally, the stadiums, many clubs want to build them but can't. Again I wonder why they intend to bury the football industry which pays 1.3 billion in taxes." Cairo has acted as spokesperson for a request from many Serie A clubs who want the possibility of having betting operators among their sponsors, which is currently prohibited.
But not only. The companies would like to have a percentage of the income deriving from betting, as they are the subjects most involved in betting. Sports Minister Andrea Abodi spoke directly on this last issue. “I believe that we should focus on a different hypothesis, for which I had already worked in the last Budget, that is to assign the organizers of Italian sporting events a percentage of the collection of bets, to avoid their exclusion from the value chain, which to date benefits the State, the prize money and the concessionaires – said Minister Abodi in an interview with La Stampa -. I believe that this measure can be introduced through the decree to reorganize the sector, in its two dimensions: digital and physical".
THE EMPHASIZATIONS OF THE MINISTER OF SPORT
“The government has a clear position, it has asked the football system at the highest level several times to present us with an organic industrial plan to understand how we can intervene in support, because we have no intention and no interest in humiliating football and Serie A in particular. », also said the Minister of Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodi, on the sidelines of the General States of the labor consultants. In particular, he explained that Serie A «we believe is also the economic engine of a system on a double level, that of system mutuality – given that Serie A gives 130 million a year to the rest of the football system – and for the large contribution – more than 50% – to public financing of sport indirectly. We would be self-harming if we penalized the engine." However, continued Abodi, «to help the engine we must have a complete representation of what this system wants to do, which is not only the representation of the system on which the Federation is working together with the leagues but also the industrial plan of Serie A ». On this level, the minister continued, «I am at a good point, there are many objectives to pursue together, I would not like to go into the merits of the individual element (requests from companies to be able to return to being sponsored by betting companies, ed.) even if the topic – not so much of advertising – but the topic of participation in the value chain of sports betting collection by organizers in a general sense – not only in football – is a topic on the agenda that we want to address. I think our responsibility is to analyze the impacts of the standards we want to promote. The league and the Football Federation will help us understand how we can give support that allows Italian football to be competitive, on the assumption that football knows where it wants to go", he concluded.
THE RULE SAVES SPORTS (OR SAVES FOOTBALL) WHICH HAS DEFERRED ABOUT 900 MILLION IN TAXES
Urbano Cairo's comment was a bit ungenerous. Suffice it to say that only a year ago the Meloni government gave the green light to the introduction of the so-called sport-saving , or rather football-saving, rule. The rule that allowed all Serie A clubs to spread the debts accumulated with missed Irpef payments which remained suspended due to the Covid 19 pandemic into 60 installments. And we are not talking about insignificant figures but about 889 million euros, 500 of as attributable to Serie A clubs. The president of Lazio and Forza Italia senator Claudio Lotito personally mobilized for this amendment which ended in last year's Finance Law.
150 MILLION EUROS TO THE WORLD OF FOOTBALL DURING THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC
But not only. During the Covid 19 pandemic, state aid did not leave only the world of football. As Verità&Affari writes, between the end of 2020 and the spring of 2022 numerous Serie A clubs received contributions of just under 150 million euros from the Italian state, 142.7 million. This was the measure of aid for the Covid emergency. Among the clubs that have benefited from the support are Juventus, Inter, Milan, Naples but also Bologna, Urbano Cairo's Torino, Cremonese, Monza, Roma, Salernitana (2.2 million euros), Spezia , Torino (with 15 million) and Verona. The most subsidized team was Genoa with 55 million euros, followed by Hellas Verona with 33.2 million euros. Aid is provided through:
- state guarantees on loans requested by clubs from the banking world;
- direct contributions to companies (from the government or the Regions);
- IRAP discount provided as a Covid relief;
- cutting social security contributions to its employees (if the redundancy fund had not been requested between 2020 and 2021).
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/calcio-serie-a-il-chiagni-e-fotti-di-urbano-cairo/ on Thu, 11 Jan 2024 14:57:49 +0000.