Football, Meritocracy Italy: “Refounding it starting from merit”

“The paradox is evident. In the amateur leagues, 90% of the players are Italian – we read in the press release -. In Serie A the percentage drops to 5%. This funnel shows that the problem is not the youth sectors: football schools and training clubs exist, they are recognized by the FIGC and work every day. The problem is the transition to professionalism, where there is a lack of real incentives to valorise the Italian player. Italian football cannot continue to be an imported championship. If we do not build a path that accompany young people from the amateur sector to Serie A, we risk impoverishing the national team and losing the very identity of our football.”

“We need a revolution based on merit and reward rules – Meritocracy Italia proposes -. It’s not enough to talk about nurseries. We need to give concrete value to those who build a squad with Italians. Our proposal is simple: to equate the value of a victory. The Scudetto and the Italian Cup must weigh as much as a salvation obtained with a team made up exclusively of Italian footballers. A recognition that can be economic, sporting or ranking, but which encourages clubs to invest in the training and growth of our kids. Only in this way can the meaning of the word be restored ‘training’ and giving a perspective to young people who today disappear among the amateurs.”

“The issue doesn’t just concern the players. It also concerns the way in which the game is played and refereed – continues the statement -. In Italy the whistle is whistled at every contact, the rhythm is broken, continuity is killed. Abroad punishment is the exception: it is allowed to play, the intensity is encouraged, the player gets used to the physical and technical confrontation. Our kids arrive in Europe unprepared for this type of football. It is no coincidence that we struggle in the Champions League: we are educated to a kind of football fragmented, not a football of pace and contact. This is why we support the reform being discussed in the FIGC to make the refereeing sector more professional and autonomous, removing it from the territorial logic and political constraints of the Hague. We need a full-time refereeing body, trained with trainers, doctors and match analysts, capable of guaranteeing uniformity and quality”.

“Italian football needs a strong leadership in the FIGC as happened in the CONI (in previous years). A charismatic figure who has the courage to break the current balance and put merit, planning and national interest at the centre, not that of the shop. Meritocracy Italy does not ask for protectionism. It asks for rules that reward those who work well, those who train, those who take risks. Because football is a cultural heritage of the country and cannot be left to the logic of immediate results and easy importation. If we want to return great people, we must stop buying the future and start building it”, concludes the note from Meritocracy Italia.