Any Comment Mr. Berlusconi?

Yesterday, Italy's Antitrust authority revealed their remedies for Serie A after last year's Calciopoli scandal revealed some cracks in how the game is run. Sending your recommendations to the top clubs in Italy must be about as useful as sending your study group report about Iraq to the president. Nonetheless, here are their main recommendations:

• The January transfer window should be limited to player moves to and from teams in foreign leagues or lower divisions and not between teams in Serie A.
• The number of players a club can loan from other teams should be capped to two or three.
• Player loans should last no less than a season.
• Players should have the right to tear up their contracts if they have "just cause", that is, a legally binding case.
• There should be a reintroduction of the collective negotiation of soccer broadcasting rights so that smaller clubs get a fairer share of TV revenues.

Not a bad start, but will it really go anywhere? As the article mentions, the club owners are not likely to accept any of this. The one recommendation that might get the needed support would be the issue of the TV contracts. With no collective bargaining between the clubs and the TV companies, the pie is very unevenly divided.

In the 2005-06 season, from rights fees, Juventus, Milan, and Inter earned $102.1M, $94.8M, and $89.5M respectively. That season, Siena, Ascoli, and Treviso collected $15.6M, $14.2M, and $14M. Unless this aspect of the Italian game is put more in line with the TV rules in England, France, and Germany, Serie A will always be a league where the majority of the clubs merely make up the numbers.

Antitrust calls for soccer shake-up [ANSA]

-ac