Napoli President Slams 'Mortifying' New Serie A TV Rights Deal Despite Income Almost Doubling
The foreign television rights to Italy's top division, Serie A, have just been sold for the next three seasons to IMG for €371m. But Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has said he is 'mortified' by the low price of the sale.
IMG have won the bidding process for the international television rights of Serie A up to the 2020/21 season. The bid is reported to be almost double the value of the previous deal, but this is nowhere near enough according to De Laurentiis.
At a news conference at the Lega Serie A headquarters in Milan, De Laurentiis said he felt 'very disappointed' by the deal.
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"Compared with what La Liga, the Premier League and the Bundesliga are earning, we still have to make up many years of ground lost due to big mistakes, when for many years our product was not even being seen abroad."
The €371m fee places the Serie A third in value for international television rights in Europe, behind the Premier League at €1.3b and La Liga at €636m. Their deal, if agreed by the clubs, will make the Italian league's television rights more valuable than the German Bundesliga which is currently at €240m.
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But De Laurentiis continued, "I'm quite mortified by the offers we received. If elsewhere they are earning twice as much revenue as we are, earning double last year is insufficient. Being around €350m is ridiculous.
"The gap to other leagues is going to grow out of all proportion. We're not going to be able to buy any players. Italian football is going to have to say goodbye to its glory for many more years thanks to this chaos."
