Stephen Pagliuca, new patron of Atalanta and co-owner of the Boston Celtics, is the latest in order of time. In recent years, wealthy US investors, including funds, have chosen our leagues (also B and C) for their investments
Well yes (and forgive the obvious rhyme): Italian football, you want to be an American. Oppressed by debts, strangled by the club accounts in red, abandoned by the Berlusconi and Morattis (only the Agnellis remain faithful over the centuries), with a Serie A reduced to picking up the smallest slice of the international television rights cake, the home ball ours seeks new life in foreign investors. They arrive in droves, attracted by a generally more favorable purchase price than what would be asked of them in other countries, and, therefore, by probable growth margins that cannot be achieved elsewhere. In A, 9 out of 20 clubs have foreign ownership; seven of these are American: Atalanta, Fiorentina, Genoa, Milan, Rome, Spezia, Venice. Bologna remains out, however Canadian, then North American, and Zhang’s Chinese Inter. The stars and stripes entrepreneurs also looked at B (Parma, Pisa and Spal) and C (Cesena). An interest, that of the USA, developed above all at the turn of the pandemic, exploiting advantageous economic conditions of purchase due to the recession due to Covid, and in the wake of the hold that European football has had on the pioneers who crossed the ocean to colonize the our territories, a bit like their ancestors did in the West. 2005, the year in which the Glazer brothers inaugurated what has become a fashion today with the purchase of Manchester United, really seems to be part of a bygone era.