Italian football clubs lost 3.6 bn euros during Covid pandemic

Italian professional football clubs lost 3.6 billion euros ($3.97 bn) between 2019 and 2022 due to Covid and pandemic-related restrictions, according to an annual report.

According to the 2023 edition of ReportCalcio published by the Italian Football Federation, the top three divisions lost an average of 1.2 billion euros per year during the Covid period, while their cumulative losses were 412 million euros in 2018-19, before the pandemic.

Losses for the 2021-22 season alone, the last considered for this report, amounted to 1.4 billion euros, "the worst ever recorded in the fifteen years that this annual report has been published," it said.

The indebtedness of Italian professional football reached 5.6 billion euros in 2021-22, a 4.4 percent increase over one year.

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The authors of the report welcomed the joint candidacy of Italy and Turkey to host Euro 2032 as "a unique opportunity" to increase ticketing revenue by modernising a fleet of notoriously outdated stadiums.

Ticketing revenue for all Italian professional football was 254 million euros in 2021-22, compared to 226 million a year earlier, but still far from the 341 million of 2018-19, the last season before the pandemic.

By comparison, Manchester United alone generated 126 million euros in ticketing revenue in 2021-22, according to the Deloitte report.

Source: AFP