Italy’s wealthiest clubs, Juventus and Inter Milan, respectively have a wage-over-revenue ratio of 84% and 82%,
Deloitte Football Money League 2023 reveals. Those percentages rank them above all of the world’s top-10 wealthiest soccer clubs with the sole exception of French powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain.
While the labor cost remains high, Marotta emphasized the Italian clubs’ inability to exploit matchday ticketing and hospitality, a key revenue stream in elite soccer but one in which Italy still lags behind with respect to the rest of Europe.
Only four out of 20 Serie A sides currently own a stadium, while the remaining 16 teams are just tenants of outdated venues that offer limited on-site services and a modest matchday experience compared to what soccer fans are used to feeling, watching and doing at live events in stadiums abroad.
Building new facilities or upgrading the existing ones, however, can be very tricky for Italian clubs. Many Serie A foreign owners - most of whom hail from the U.S. - have tried getting new stadium projects underway but ended up butting their head against the sturdy wall of Italian bureaucracy.