Job Cuts in the Calcio Dungeons

By: chris | August 4th, 2008

To combat the number of clubs finding financial instability and even going belly up, Lega Pro, the new name for Serie C1 & C2 in Italian calcio conjured up to confuse people, have decided to put a cap on the number of players each team can employ (actual number still unclear), effectively “cutting jobs” for hundreds of footballers. This has been met with a minor bit of outrage from those teams effected, who have responded with a strike, and the big boys will also be showing a bit of solidarity by spending the first 30 mins of opening day locked in the locker rooms Moggi-style. Well, part solidarity, and partly because it effects them a bit too.

In short, this sucks for those teams in Serie C1 & C2, but it also may be a necessary evil because administration is far too common in Italian football. This season Messina, a Serie A participant (using that term very loosely – they were just-this-side-of-rubbish) only 2 years ago, was dissolved and relegated to Serie D, the 5th tier of Italian football. A fate which has also felled relative giants Fiorentina and Napoli this decade. (Both are doing quite well now, thanks.) So, while a sizable number of fringe pro athletes will be forced back to other jobs typically reserved for the hoi polloi, it may help save the clubs which employ them. And though those hit hardest by the crunch will obviously be the players getting the pink slip, this will force some creativity for the Serie A & B sides as well.

Because Italy doesn’t employ reserve sides – only the first and youth teams, the oldest of which is the Primavera – most players too old for the youth setup and still deemed worthy enough to keep around are sent out on loan to lesser sides. There they’ll earn enough playing time to develop and give the parent club a chance to assess their worth. This often means clubs in C1 & C2 – some local – where the kids can develop and work their way up the rungs of calcio.

Now those clubs have fewer spots to take on loans and may force the A & B clubs to release some players they were hoping would be late bloomers. Two notable names who spent their early 20’s in the newly named Lega Pro are world champions Luca Toni and Fabio Grosso. Players of their quality are usually getting Serie A clubs all hot and bothered by the time they’re ready to be weaned off Pampers, not fighting for a move up to Serie B. In fact, Luca Toni was once thisclose to hanging up his boots after struggling down in the dungeons then picking up a knee injury. Hard to imagine a player of his caliber being nudged toward retirement by squad limits. Surely tragic for calcio. (Azzurri fans strongly encouraged to zip it here.)

In the grand scheme of the world football that most fans care about, not really an enormous deal. It’s the way of the world, and plenty of businesses lay off workers every week. After all, it could be worse, they could work for Starbucks.

What’s interesting will be the impact this has on the future of calcio, the youngsters. Or maybe we’ll never know.