While Italy continues to fight COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and try to work out a solution for the resumption of the Italian Serie A, one thing has become certain. This is the fact that, if and when the season resumes, each team will not be able to count on their fans being present in their stadiums to cheer them on. This is a result of the findings from Italian epidemiologists and experts; they have declared that fans will not be able to enter into sports facilities until at least the new year (2021).
From an economic point of view, this news is obviously set to have detrimental consequences in both the short and long term on the Italian football industry. In addition to each club having to find a way to deal with the refunds for their fans’ 2019/20 season tickets, they will not be able to count on revenues deriving from ticket sales and season ticket sales for the 2020/21 season.
According to the latest report from Calcio e Finanza – an Italian website that provides news and analysis about the business side of football – based on the official data which was collected from the yearly and half-yearly financial statements published by each club (as at 30 June 2019 and as at 31 December 2019), there will be an average net loss of 14% of the overall turnover. This estimate was composed by evaluating all of the data making up the item titled ‘Revenues from Matches’ in each of the clubs’ financial statements.
While Juventus (€70.65 million, which is 15.22% of the total operating revenue generated as at 30 June 2019), Inter (€49.18 million, which is 13.18% of the total operating revenue generated as at 30 June 2019), Milan (€39.39 million, which is 18.27% of the total operating revenue generated as at 30 June 2019), and Roma (€33.67 million, which is 14.46% of the total operating revenue generated as at 30 June 2019) will suffer massive losses, Napoli (€18.10 million, which is 8.22% of the total operating revenue generated as at 30 June 2019) and Lazio (€11.27 million, which is 10.39% of the total operating revenue produced as at 30 June 2019) will suffer minor losses.
When analyzing the revenues of all of the Serie A teams, it is possible that there will be a loss of revenue of approximately €290 million.
