US investors bet on Italian League’s return to glory days

ROME: Parma and Spezia have become the most recent Italian clubs to pass into US ownership with more than a quarter of Serie A oufits now in the hands of north American owners.

If foreign investment has long been part of the Premier League with only four clubs still Britishowned, the phenomenon is more recent in Italy.

The harsh economic reality of the coronavirus pandemic has made clubs more open to potential investors, experts said.

Roma’s Us-era began a decade ago with James Pallota, who sold on to another American businessman Dan Friedkin last summer.

Former European giants AC Milan are also flying the US flag since passing into the hands of the Elliot Management group in 2018 ater the club’s Chinese owners defaulted on a debt to the hedge fund. Fiorentina have been owned by Italian-born US businessman Rocco Commisso since 2019, while this season the Krause group became the the majority shareholder in Parma, and financier Robert Platek and his family purchased promoted Spezia in February.

Canadian Joey Saputo has owned Bologna since 2014. This North American interest is based on an economic bet, the awakening of the “sleeping giant” that would be Serie A, according to Patrick Massey of Portas Consulting, a British firm which specialises in sport.

Italy were the centre of the football planet in the 1980s and 1990s, in the days when Argentina great Diego Maradona played at Napoli.

The sum paid for Spezia, a reported 25 million euros ($30 million), is a “good example” of the current devaluation of Italian football, compared to other European or MLS clubs, according to Jordan Gardner, an American investor who has worked with several European clubs, and now owns Danish side FC Helsingor.

Andrea Sartori, head of the sport sector at audit firm KPMG believes investors are counting on a future increase in television rights for the Italian league which are “very far from those of the Premier League or La Liga, in particular internationally”.

The allocation of rights for the next three seasons is underway in Italy. The other expected growth area is the country’s outdated stadiums, with just a few in the ownership of their club such as Juventus, Udinese, Sassuolo and Atalanta.

This dream of renovated or even new sports facilities, to increase ticket sales and generate additional income, seems to be shared by all clubs under the American banner.