The president of the Serie A League addressed some hot topics in our football, including Gattuso’s national team
Goodbye Riyadh, perhaps we’ll return to the single final for the Super Cup: this is the idea of Ezio Maria Simonelli, president of Serie A, who however specifies that the League Council must decide.
“We no longer have the constraint of the double semi-final – said Simonelli to Radio Anch’io Sport -. Next year the Asian Cup will be played in Riyadh and the Saudis, despite still having a contracted edition, have already said they will give it up. We will be free to choose the location and format. My idea is to return to the classic formula: a single final between the championship winner and the Italian Cup winner. If we go towards the single final, the date could also be at the beginning of the championship, as in the past. But these are choices that concern the League Council, as well as the location of the final“.
Simonelli also responded to the controversy over Milan-Como in Perth, after the cancellation of the match. “I don’t want to get into controversy with the sports minister Abodi. Talking about superficiality when for months our offices have been in continuous dialogue with the leaders of European and world football seems ungenerous to me, it is a bit like exploiting what happened to tell the public what it wants to hear“.
“As a fan – he added – I can understand that playing a match 13 thousand km away from us would have been anomalous, penalizing for the fans, but it was a choice not of the League but of the clubs involved. The League only brought a series of proposals to the table and Australia’s was by far the most advantageous. But the conditions later proved to be impracticable. In my opinion, it was AFC’s intention from the beginning not to want this match to be played. They didn’t want Italy to be the first to break this taboo and the door was barred. From a business perspective, this is a missed opportunity“.
But couldn’t the two matches between Milan and Como be reversed, it was asked, and the one played at San Siro on 15 January? “It’s not easy to find these joints even with TVs. If that change was not made, it is because it was objectively difficult to do so. At this point – continued Simonelli – lThe match will take place at San Siro on the first available date. We will have to wait until January 31st, the date on which the Champions League playoffs will be decided, to establish when San Siro will also be free from Inter and the match will be scheduled on one of those Wednesdays, as soon as possible“.
The Serie A president also spoke about the national team’s play-offs for the World Cup. “From all the clubs, there is the utmost desire to help Gattuso. Moving a championship day is very difficult, the calendar is very tight. The companies gave their availability on the stage. For our part, we will try to do everything we can to help the coach, he deserves it“.
In short, for 2026, the hope is “that the national team will finally take us to play the World Cup again and then we can have a World Cup worthy of our tradition“. Simonelli reiterated his idea of bringing the evening shows forward to 8pm (“but I have some doubts about whether it could materialize soon, there is strong resistance. It’s the TVs that need to convince themselves“), talked about the complaints about the orange ball (“an unfortunate choice: we have received many legitimate protests about this, there are people who cannot see it due to color blindness. We have asked our supplier to advance the supply of new balls, it will take some time“) and finally he returned to talk about the request to bring the Serie A back to 18 teams: “It doesn’t just concern Serie A, but the entire professional football movement. On January 15, the federation convened a working table in Rome with the leagues on championship reforms“.
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