«We do not make debts, the stuff is all paid. There are no mortgages, leasing or bonds, Jemses Bond ». To hear the words of the president of Lazio Claudio Lotito, Lazio’s economic situation in view of the summer market does not arouse particular concern. However, as much as it transpires from the press for a few days, as well as the dissatisfaction of Maurizio Sarri – arrived by voice of Alfredo Pedullà, journalist of Sportitalia Among the most linked to the Tuscan technician – the Lazio market seems to be stopped in a quagmire precisely for economic problems.
Over the years, President Lotito has been screwed with accounts always in order and a balanced economic situation, yet the latest rumors tell of a Lazio who at the moment risks not being able to operate. How much is it? And above all, what story does the last half -yearly of Lazio tell (which we can see why still listed on the stock exchange)? It is a complex situation.
The famous liquidity index
In the Lazio world for a few years we have only talked about the liquidity index, perhaps the only company in A which has brought to the attention of the general public a fairly dark factor of the transfer market of the Italian teams. “This is an index that shows how much a club is able to respect its financial commitments,” said agent Fifa Valerio Giuffrida, interviewed by the Gianluca Di Marzio site Grand Hotel Calciomercatoand precisely from the Sky journalist’s website comes the best definition for this index: the relationship between the sum of all the money possessed and in credit in the short term, and the debts and payments to be extinguished, controlled twice a year. The benchmark for Serie A is 0.8, and is considered one of the most important indicators to establish the state of health of a football club, so much so that its breakdown implies the blocking of the market at least until a transfer or an increase in capital unlocks the situation.
The problems of Lazio start from the change rules, which brought the liquidity index from 0.6 initial to the current 0.8 (but this is also destined to change). The president of the FIGC Gabriele Gravina has approved new rules that will replace the liquidity index with greater controls of Covisoc (supervision commission on professional football clubs), which will pass to four per year, and above all the implementation of the squad cost rulein line with the financial fair play, so the cost of staff cannot exceed 70% of revenues.
The latest rules should be less scarbutic than the current for Lazio, with Lotito who has in fact tried to anticipate their implementation already in June instead of in January (for now, however, there are no signs in this sense, even if the squad cost rule Technically it has already been in force since March). In essence, looking at the liquidity index, so the actual liquidity available for a company than the budget assets, Lazio is a company more at risk, also counts more, even compared to others even more indebted or with higher budget liabilities. A theme to which Lotito has often made reference, sometimes in a moving way as in the phrase that opens the article.
Other companies, such as Roma for example, have accounts characterized by high budget liabilities compared to Lazio, but unlike the biancoceleste club they have majority shareholders capable of being able to cover any liquidity injects with liquidity, thus complying the FIGC parameters.
How it is possible that the accounts do not come back
The question is soon asked: why don’t the accounts come back despite Lazio’s last half -yearly ended with a slight profit despite the absence of a flywheel of revenues such as the Champions League? The answer is in the income statement and the reasoning that derives from it.
According to the latest available budget, the half -yearly, Lazio closed with a profit of 600 thousand euros, against 40 million in the previous year. A figure in which 87 million costs for staff weigh and in which even net financial debt has worsened by about ten million compared to the previous year due to the reduction of availability at banks. To worsen the picture is the absence of Lazio from the next European competitions, with an estimated loss compared to the last season of about 30 million revenues, a real oxygen to return within the parameters. In short, Lazio’s problems seem to go beyond the liquidity index.
As reported by the journalist of Messenger Alberto Abbate, Lazio seems to have churned through two other parameters of the Noif (Federal internal organizational rules) such as debt and the cost of extended labor, and for the breakdown of these parameters, the incoming operations is provided for both June and January. Of course, with the movement already mentioned of the parameters, Lazio would fall within, thus being able to reinvest what has been given out, but the hypothesis seems complex at the moment. Even resolving the situation by placing liquidity or use of corporate assets could hardly guarantee an unlocking, thanks to the next one target date at 30 September 2025.
Always for The messenger The news of the market blocking was communicated to Lotito even on May 26, first of the signature of Maurizio Sarri (a hypothesis denied yesterday by the DS of Lazio, Angelo Fabiani, according to which “As of May 26 I did not know of this constraint and this situation, so I spoke freely with Sarri. I would never have dreamed of, neither I nor Lotito, to make fun of him”). The cause was the official of the failure to qualify for the European cups. To complicate the picture, the debt situation of the club, with about 200 million debts which, according to the half -yearly, are at the end of December 31, 2025 (divided between commercials, to bodies, taxes and financial) and which contribute “to the deception” of the liquidity index – a parameter that also takes into account these situations. A not indifferent weight have had it onerous redemptions taken now, like the 17 million due to Juventus for Nicolò Rovella, a postponed investment. For the latest estimates, the Lazio liquidity index would therefore settles at 0.3, well away from the 0.8 required.
The Lazio strategy really pays?
Lazio found by Lotito has been made solid, and from 2009 onwards more and more competitive on the pitch, especially if we compare it to the financial availability of the citizens’ rivals and the Milanese for long periods. From this point of view Lotito’s ability is undeniable. Today, however, the risk aversion strategy of the Biancoceleste society pays less, especially because of the competition that has risen around it. With the return to high levels of Milan and Inter, and the emergence of new realities of Italian football such as Atalanta and Bologna (and in the future, who knows, Como) the margin of error is getting closer. A wrong season can lead you not to make cups as happened to Milan this year or Napoli last season. A net contrast with the situation of our Serie A especially in the early ’10, in which there were only Rome and Naples behind the impregnable Juve.
Lazio two years ago qualified in the Champions League with Sarri, but then managed to consolidate that result through targeted investments.
Napoli is an excellent reference to evaluate two very similar properties in the “spirit” but to the count of the facts animated by different strategies. The liquidity available to the majority shareholder of Napoli is not very different from that of Lazio. For the Gazette The president of Napoli has entered the club only 16 million in capital increases from 2004 onwards, but the results on the field and economic level between the two teams are very different. Net of the two championships of the last three years, which have further excavated the furrow, since 2004 Napoli has accumulated more than 3 and a half billion revenues between capital gains and cash prizes relating to qualifying in the Champions League, sporty and economic banner. From this point of view, the first difference already emerges, with Napoli who since 2008 has qualified in the maximum European competition 10 times, against the 4 Champions League qualifications for Lazio since 2004.
Of the affinity and differences between Lotito and De Laurentiis he spoke about it for a long time on X the @Leastsquares account, the most authoritative and informed on Lazio theme at an economic level. As noted by him, in 2010 the budgets of Lazio and Naples were substantially identical, very similar revenues and mountain engagements, the only difference in the player trading, in which Napoli spent 23 million more than Lazio in 2010. In 2019, 9 years later, the difference is merciless, with Napoli (not yet leaned) which has 83 million more revenues, compared to a difference in engagements of fifty million more than Napoli than Lazio. The node are always the capital gains and the setting of the strategy.
Over the years Napoli has always sought coaches capable of enhancing the players available and has spent much more than Lazio in future and retailers profiles, drawing an economic benefit (testified by the 56 million players trading in the same period) in the short term but on which the long -term strategy has been welded. In short: Napoli took some more risk, and those risks paid.
On this base of enhancement and resale of the players, Napoli managed to create a virtuous circle made of positive budgets and repeated qualifications for the European cups, especially at the Champions League, on the field. They fly of money invested in improving the team and substantially risking the money themselves earned in the hope of generating further. A fact that testifies to it is the difference in capital gains from 2010 to 2025 between Lazio and Naples, with a waste of almost 500 million in favor of Napoli. A enormousness that has also been reflected in the results on the pitch between the two teams, which hangs more and more in favor of Napoli who only in this summer managed to keep Antonio Conte against the Juventus court and to attract an absolute champion, although at there with age, such as Kevin de Bruyne.
Lazio, on the other hand, has been held far from such a strategy, favoring the continuity that has earned the excellent cycle of Inzaghi but that at the same time, as can be seen with the management of Milinkovic-Savic, it precluded a possible leap in quality. A model that is no longer sustainable with the emergence of increasingly efficient companies in our Serie A and capable of overcoming Lazio for results thanks to the creation of a virtuous circulation of capital gains. Without necessarily having to resort to the use of liquidity by the majority shareholder.
In the last markets, Lazio has sought younger profiles but without investing in a convinced way, nor economic than technical level, and the result is a stagnation that in the absence of results above the average risks being able to further drop the revenues and consequently the resources that are intended for the rose with the current strategy.
The way out for Lazio does not seem easy, also because, always second The messengerthe figure to unlock the situation is approaching 90 million. Money that can only come through Lotito’s liquidity injections or through the transfer market. The margin is narrow, given that selling too many important players would mean reducing the squad available to Sarri – who had returned enthusiasm to the Lazio fans. The road of capital gains also seems twisted, as reported by Leastsquares: “The transfer of footballers in this session is useless to restore the deficit to 31.3.25. In fact, only credits can be used over 12 months relating to sales of players already accounted for in the reference balance sheet”.
President Lotito could also decide not to act, giving only the redundancies and awaiting the change of rules that should encourage the Lazio situation. Of course, not the best of situations for a team that, with a new coach, would need to design the future.
