Valentina Battistini, interview: “Football must return to the three-year constraint”

“In 60 days we can write a well-done reform of the technical sector, convening a table with all the components of the world of football and the Government. But there is a rule which, if not changed immediately, risks not allowing us to go to the World Cup in the next few years”. Valentina Battistini is the president of the Lombardy Regional Committee of the LND, from her privileged observatory made up of over 200,000 members and more than 1,400 sports facilities, she raises the alarm and proposes her recipe for turning the world of Italian football around after the third consecutive disaster.

Battistini, what would be the first thing to do?
“The Government must bring the link between clubs and young players back from annual, as it is now after the Sport Reform (law decree 36/2021), to three-yearly. If a player is free at the end of each year, what incentive do clubs have to help him grow? Let’s not forget that training a high-level athlete costs a lot, because you need to have structures and professionals such as trainers, nutritionists, etc. If the boy is free to leave on 30 June, why should I invest on his talent? It’s unthinkable to continue like this. Among other things, parents are often attracted by the shirt and don’t understand the technical project. Of course, the eight-year limit was very wrong, but we need the three-year limit to be able to work on the players.

What would be the other aspects on which it is more urgent to intervene?
“We absolutely must address the costs that the Sports Reform has brought about. Now the federations that have professionalism, like the FIGC, are subject to the labor law regulations of ordinary work: our footballers have a sports employment contract with a collective agreement. But can I ever make a third category team pay for illness?”

And then?
“We would need a framework law that gives stability to sports facilities. Now each municipal administration thinks independently about the tenders for the award of facilities, which are all different and often short-lived. We are full of entrepreneurs who would like to invest money in the facilities, but if you have to pay 500 thousand euros to build a field you cannot access sports credit with a three-year assignment. We would need at least ten. We need a framework law that regulates these concessions and, consequently, unlocks private investments. Finally, there is a need to also review the Code of Sports Justice because we are no longer competitive: today if you go to a promotional body you don’t have a fine for objective liability on the pitch”.

From your observation point, do you notice a lack of love among the new generations for football?
“No, we have footballers. The problem is that the federal rules need to be reformed, which are the ones that restart the youth sectors and nurseries. Is it possible, for example, that among the Under 13s we are forced to play 9 against 9, when on the playground the children play 11, 15 or however many there are?”.

What do you say to those who say that football is now a sport for the rich because football schools cost too much?
“It’s not true, we are the sport that still costs the least today: we have clubs that charge a fee of 120 euros a year, while an elite football school costs 600 euros a year. That’s 60 euros a month. The problem is that it costs little, but then maybe it gives you little quality because you don’t have the funds to provide quality. We have two paths within our regional committees: there is the social one, of the footballer who plays sports for fun because he goes to school and maybe when he goes to university give up; and there is the federal one, that is, those clubs that develop high-performance talent in the youth sectors. We must always cultivate these two worlds, but if you want to develop a high-performance athlete you cannot pay 120 euros a year.”

Speaking of youth sectors, there is a lot of talk about the role of coaches and the fact that they now think about their careers rather than teaching…
“Yes, but here too there is a solution, because the problem is always the same: if the costs are unsustainable, you necessarily have to reach an elite category, because this allows you to reach a higher registration fee. So you are forced to make this type of reasoning, because otherwise you cannot maintain the structure. We need to work on the costs and bring the focus back to the technical training rather than the victory.”

Yes, the technique. It is said that football is no longer taught in schools, favoring tactics…
“In reality, we don’t even work on that anymore, but we look for the foreign player because he is physically capable and, consequently, has the individuality that makes the difference. Italy, however, has always been a technical nation, which must convince, not just win. The problem is not today, but it was written on all the walls. Unfortunately, however, we Italians are used to seeing the hole when it is already made.”