New Italian Stadium Update Thread

I must say, Italy's smaller clubs could surely learn from MLS and their new stadia....

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why would italy do something that could put thousands of people to work ?

 

Italian clubs aren't franchises...

 

You do have to spend 100's of millions. Audi Field is at least $300 million and supposedly it has cost more than that.

 

Avaya Stadium in San Jose was only $100 million as of 2015 and it has all the latest modern amenities. Silicon/Santa Clara Valley and/or the San Francisco Bay Area is one most expensive areas in the country. I'm sure a Spal , Palermo and especially a middle of the road club like a Fiorentina could definitely benefit from a stadium like that.

Fiorentina has their own stadium plans in the works but knowing how things work in Florence and/or Tuscany as is the case with Roma's stadium, I'll believe it when I see it.

When you consider the cost of individual players whose careers on average don't last longer than 5 years at the same club, in today's world, $100 or even $200 million is not all that much money. A stadium though lasts a lifetime, especially in Italy.

 

If the smaller clubs build , own and control their own stadiums, they may be able to survive and may even make a profit. In the the short run, I’d rather sacrifice spending on players for a season or two and would rather spend it on a stadium. Wasn’t it Milan who spent $200 million in the mercato last summer? It’s not like they have anything to show for it. Unless making the Europa League is lucrative, they are in the same boat as Chievo , Atalanta and Udinese.

 

Yeah but I wouldn’t have bought Bonucci for 30 million. He is a good player and I’m all for more Italian players but I would have rather groomed another younger one for less money.

Commissioner of MLS Don Garber once said, “I’d rather invest in bricks and mortar than on expensive , overrated and overaged superstars”!

Any of us who have Italian families have always heard the phrase.....

"sempre investire nel mattone"

 

These stadium plans in Italy are a dime a dozen. It takes a World Cup every 56 years or a guy like Agnelli with a lot of money to come up with an innovative idea and make things happen.

 

When I lived in Florence, I went through so many of these "construction discussions" it wasn't even funny.........

“aspetta e spera!”....

 

I don't know if im in the minority in this one but I actually quite like the Renza Barbera in Palermo (aside from it being municipally owned). Even with a smaller version track around...seems like the fans are close enough to the field... and the see through barrier around the perimeter gives it a uniqueness

 

It’s in bad shape...may be better than Catania though....

 

Going back to the argument about spending on players vs building a stadium , I seem to recall Ibra and kaka both being sold for $100 million. Looking back , I can’t really recall if it helped or not. Milan was intact. The sale may have helped Inter as they bought Milito , and a few others and they won the treble but they hit rock bottom after that and haven’t won anything ever since.

It makes you wonder where do or should you spend your money? Juventus built their own place and won six in a row and they were a disaster after Calciopoli. Not too many people now really remember or care when they were in Serie B and they’ve made up for it.

Bottom line is you sacrifice the team in the short run but make up for it by investing in a stadium.

 

Milan had a defense intact forever. Nesta came in 2002 only five years after Baresi retired. Maldini and Costacurta played 20+ years and Inzaghi, Gattuso and Pirlo over ten years. The same with Seedorf and Dida who was a bargain. I think they had great players and they didn’t ever think , need or care about the future. When those players were gone or retired, no one could match their skills. Not grooming or developing younger players didn’t help either.

 

I forgot to add however that for those of us living abroad, we don't realize how difficult it is to get things done in Italy. I always tend to forget after how things work until I remember what I went through. Thinking back, I remember that all or most of Italian regions own the lands outside of the city centers. Driving between towns, you have miles of empty fields that is supposedly government owned. Most regions, Tuscany and Lazio for example do not allow construction of any sort. You have to have permits, projects , architects plans , you have to get approvals from everyone and their mother.

The further south you go, Terracina , Formia , Gaeta and on down, the more you have to deal with organized crime which is working with the city governments.

Antonio Pulvirenti was approached to build a stadium for Catania but he then was accused of sports fraud and last I heard was under house arrest in 2015. I lost touch after that. Maurizio Zamparini bought Palermo but he dealt directly with the capo mafiosi who allowed him to buy the club. He used the buying of Palermo to get his supermarket and retail malls into Sicily.

In Calabria and Sicily, you have all these semi built structures that never get completed because the regional detectives stop the workers from completing it. Some families wait for years before they can complete a certain project. They apply for the "condono" (reprieve or grace) , get the permits and then finally finish their "case abusive".





Then you have other cases where you have the City governments who don’t want owners to buy and build their own stadiums because they no longer get the rents from the stadiums they own. You can bet though that if the owners do get their stadiums built, the cities or regions will also get their cut as they are not about to lose out on the revenue.

 

That’s s nice looking place.

 

I think italy needs to keep things simple and not look at the way the english did their clubs.