Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis laid out his own recipe for revitalizing Italian football, suggesting TV rights abroad should be sold to a single buyer. On the sidelines of an event at the Senate, the president of the reigning Italian champions declared to members of the Napoli Club Parliament:
“We need to reset the League; reducing Serie A to 18 teams won’t solve the problems. There’s a championship of the top part of the table and one of the bottom, and teams from cities with twenty thousand inhabitants distort the league.”
Television Rights – “We also need to tackle piracy, and the contracts for the sale of TV rights abroad are low; they should be sold to a single buyer at the highest price. The Super League was a tool to show Europe that there is no monopoly in football.”
Transfer Market – “Then there’s the issue of non-EU players; extending the assignment from three to five years hasn’t been positive, and things change every twelve months. Clubs should be able to act as agents for their own players. If I sign a 17 or 18-year-old, I can’t give him only a 5-year contract; I should be free to sign him for 7 or 8 years. Then, if he wants to leave at the end of the contract period, he can. I should decide, not the agents.”
