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Doidge, Mark. "The Rise and Fall of Italian Football." Football Italia: Italian Football in an Age of Globalization. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 1–12. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 27 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781472519221.0006>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 27 September 2021, 18:31 UTC. Copyright © Mark Doidge 2015. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 1 Th e Rise and Fall of Italian Football As the BBC globe faded away, the camera panned across a renaissance fresco that was inspired by Classical art. Th e female chorus rose while the screen fi lled with an image of an opera house. Th e curtain rose and the iconic voice of Luciano Pavarotti began the fi nal line of ‘ Nessun Dorma ’ , from Giacomo Puccini ’ s opera Turandot . As Pavarotti reached the climax of the aria, declaring, ‘ vincer ò ! vincer ò , vincer ò ! ’ (I will win! I will win! I will win!), the video montage replayed iconic moments from World Cups of the past, starting with Pele celebrating his opening goal in the 1970 World Cup Final. Th is was followed by the Cruyff turn, through Maradona and ending with Marco Tardelli exploding with joy and emotion while celebrating Italy ’ s second goal in the 1982 fi nal. Th e opera, culture, footballing memories and visceral emotion combined to introduce Italia ’ 90, the World Cup hosted by Italy. Th e tournament itself delivered its own iconic moments as Cameroon launched the tournament by defeating the reigning champions, Argentina, before Roger Milla shot to stardom by dancing with the corner fl ag. However, Cameroon ’ s fairy tale was ended by England, who, lost to Germany in the semi-fi nal, a defeat that famously left Paul Gascoigne – and with him all of England – in tears. Meanwhile, Argentina overcame their loss to Cameroon to reach the fi nal with a victory over the hosts, Italy, in Naples. Th e Argentine captain Diego Maradona, who played his club football with Napoli, called on the Neapolitans to support him over the Italians who, he argued, looked down on his adopted city. And in a bad-tempered fi nal, the victors over England, West Germany, defeated Maradona ’ s Argentina. Despite the appeal to nostalgia and tradition presented at Italia ’ 90, a new era of football was beginning. Italia ’ 90 was a defi ning moment for global football, and for English football in particular. It demonstrated, as King (1998) argues, the superior infrastructure and organization of the Italian game. Th e state-of-the-art stadiums housed some of the greatest players who had just graced the 1990 World Cup. Argentina ’ s FFootballootball IItalia.indbtalia.indb 1 33/26/2015/26/2015 22:18:53:18:53 PPMM 2 Football Italia Maradona and Careca played for Napoli, while their German adversaries, Rudi V ö ller and Th omas Berthold both played for Roma. Th eir German teammates, J ü rgen Klinsmann, Lothar Matth ä us and, the scorer of the winning goal in the fi nal, Andreas Brehme, all played for Internazionale (Inter). Across the city of Milan, Inter ’ s rivals, AC Milan included Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard from the Netherlands. Italy ’ s most successful team, Juventus, also boasted a fi nalist, in Th omas H ä ß ler, one of Italy ’ s emerging stars, Roberto Baggio and the leading scorer of the tournament, Salvatore ‘ Toto ’ Schillaci. Th e range of international footballing talent, alongside the outstanding stadiums, marked a sharp contrast to the rest of European football, and English football in particular. English football was emerging from a sustained period of crisis. Although there was a long history of disorder associated with British football matches, hooliganism became entrenched in the 1970s. Sustained patterns of hooliganism culminated in the Heysel stadium disaster during the 1985 European Cup fi nal between Juventus and Liverpool. An hour before kick-off , supporters of Liverpool rushed towards a section of Juventus fans. Th e antiquated and poorly maintained Belgian stadium was ill-prepared for the onslaught and a wall collapsed on the Italians. Th irty-nice Juventus fans were tragically killed. Th is resulted in English clubs being banned from European competitions for fi ve years. In addition to the ignominy of being excluded for the fi rst time since the competitions ’ inception in 1955, 1 English football suff ered another stadium disaster at Hillsborough four years later. Poor facilities and policing at the Sheffi eld stadium left ninety-six Liverpool fans crushed on the terraces. Consequently, the government investigation led by Lord Justice Taylor instigated a period of sustained investment in stadiums and policing. In particular, the stadiums of Italia ’ 90 reinforced the dramatic deterioration of the English infrastructure and the need for a drastic overhaul. Italia ’ 90, more importantly, highlighted a growing demand for football in England. Th e relative success of the England national team, combined with the celebrity status of Paul Gascoigne ’ s tears, suggested that the wider British public were voracious consumers of football. Th e Broadcasting Act of 1990 had deregulated television, which opened up competition and permitted BskyB a broader remit within British broadcasting, enabling Rupert Murdoch to use sport as his ‘ battering ram ’ to enter British broadcasting and capture the lucrative football market (Rowe 2004, p. 100). Th e popularity of Italia ’ 90 and the deregulation of television combined to ensure that BskyB could table an off er for the exclusive rights of the nascent Premier League, obliterating ITV ’ s off er and FFootballootball IItalia.indbtalia.indb 2 33/26/2015/26/2015 22:18:53:18:53 PPMM Th e Rise and Fall of Italian Football 3 ‘ blow them [ITV] out of the water ’ , as Alan Sugar lobbied (King 1998, p. 110). Th us the elite division of English football broke away from the Football League and established the Premier League in 1992. Since then, the Premier League has become the ‘ Global Football League ’ (Millward 2011) and assumed a leading position in terms of media contracts, star players and advertising revenues. At the same moment in history, the leading European clubs were campaigning for greater control over UEFA ’ s elite cup competition. Th e president of AC Milan, Silvio Berlusconi, was agitating for a league structure that would give the larger clubs a greater chance of progressing through the competition. ‘ Th e European Cup has become an anachronism ’, Berlusconi argued. ‘ It is economic nonsense that a club such as Milan might be eliminated in the fi rst round. It is not modern thinking ’ (King 2003, p. 14). Meanwhile, television audience became a major driving force for owners and federations. Deregulation of the television markets across Europe, and new satellite and cable technology, saw the emergence of transnational media companies such as Kirch in Germany, Sky in Britain and Mediaset in Italy. In the end, UEFA succumbed to club lobbying and the pressures of commercial and media expansion. Th ey established the Champions League in 1992, the same year as the English Premier League was formed, and their rebranding exercise mirrored that of the Premier League. Exclusive media contracts were granted to the highest bidder from each nation and a suite of corporate sponsors were given the exclusive rights to align their brand with that of elite European competition, mimicking what had taken place with the FIFA World Cup and Olympics previously (Sugden and Tomlinson 1998; Horne and Whannel 2012). Th e deregulation of players ’ contracts under the Bosman ruling also facilitated in transforming the European competition (Giulianotti 1999; King 2003; Goldblatt 2007). Consequently, those national markets that could accumulate the most resources from television and sponsorship could also accumulate the most playing resources. As King (2003, p. 83) highlights: Th e unifi cation of the player market has facilitated a concentration of playing power in the core football markets of the New Europe – in England, Germany, Spain and Italy – because the clubs in these countries are fi nancially better equipped than those in smaller leagues (now unprotected by national trade limitations) to buy players. Th ose clubs within national ma rkets that could leverage the greatest revenue could also further accumulate playing resources. Consequently, the elite clubs in England, Germany, Italy, France and Spain became central actors on the FFootballootball IItalia.indbtalia.indb 3 33/26/2015/26/2015 22:18:53:18:53 PPMM 4 Football Italia global network. Th ey replicated wider transformations in global capitalism that witnessed global cities emerging as central nodes for company headquarters, while subsidiary companies were dispersed across the globe (Sassen 2001; King 2003). Th is permitted the paradoxical process of accumulation and diff usion. Th e transnationalization of the game has resulted in a process of accumulation at the wealthiest clubs within the wealthiest national leagues of England, Italy, France, Spain and Germany. Th e economic deregulation of national economies and national leagues permitted this accumulation, as Goldblatt (2007, p. 696) argues: Th e logic of economic concentration has allowed the leading teams in Europe to assemble the global elite of football talent, drawing on players from every continent. Most teams in the fi nal stages possessed a majority of internationals, the leading players from Africa and Latin America as well as the very best from Europe, the concentrated talent of which has been sharpened by the regularity of European games. Deregulation had helped transform global football by permitting a coterie of elite clubs to accumulate and concentrate resources. Th ese clubs use a variety of strategies to increase their revenue, including signing star players, merchandising, sponsorship, stadium redevelopment and media rights.