FIGC pushes betting and youth reforms in plan to halt Italian football decline

The Italian Football Federation has published a report setting out reforms it says are needed to halt a structural decline in the domestic game, with proposals centred on betting-linked funding, youth incentives and infrastructure delivery.The document follows Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2026 men’s World Cup, a setback that has sharpened focus on the sport’s pipeline, club economics and decision-making structures.Gabriele Gravina, who resigned as FIGC president last week but remains in office on a caretaker basis until June 22, said the report was prepared for a parliamentary hearing that was requested and then dropped.Gravina said: “The day after Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, the VII Committee on Culture, Science and Education of the Chamber of Deputies requested — and promptly received — my availability for a hearing on the state of Italian football.”He said the hearing was then cancelled shortly after his resignation, which he suggested created a false impression that leadership change solved the underlying problems.Gravina added: “Because, regrettably, it was cancelled the following day, moments after I had tendered my resignation as President of the FIGC — as though the problems facing the game had consequently been resolved.”The report is positioned as a contribution to the policy debate rather than an internal federation memo, with Gravina signalling he intends to stay engaged despite stepping down.He said: “I have decided to publish the report prepared for the hearing regardless, in the hope that it may serve as cause for reflection and for appropriate further consideration.”Gravina argued that the problems are widely recognised and repeatedly documented, with the data changing but the direction of travel remaining negative.He said: “The critical issues facing Italian football have been well known for years, referenced in numerous official documents that differ only in their statistical data — though all in constant decline — confirming that these are, for the most part, systemic deficiencies.”A key plank of the reform package is a push to secure greater funding from betting-related sources and to channel it into youth development, grassroots participation and infrastructure.The commercial logic is to create a more durable funding stream for development programmes without increasing financial strain on professional clubs already operating with thin margins.The report also calls for youth-focused incentives designed to reward clubs that develop and field young Italian players, reflecting concern that domestic minutes and development outcomes have not kept pace with spending.That mechanism would link sporting and financial objectives, with the federation attempting to make the pathway from academy to first team more investable and more valuable in the transfer market.Gravina said the core issue is not a lack of ideas but a lack of capacity to execute, with constraints inside and outside football blocking effective intervention.“I will attempt to explain… why — in the vast majority of cases — the impossibility of intervening effectively, due to factors both internal and external to the system, has thus far overtaken the inability to identify possible solutions.”He also pointed to blurred lines of responsibility between stakeholders as a source of paralysis, arguing the lack of clarity encourages blame rather than delivery.Gravina added: “It is necessary to clarify the actual competences of the Federation, the Leagues (and therefore the Clubs) and the institutions.”He said inaccurate claims and “mistaken assumptions” were undermining attempts to build workable solutions, particularly where overlapping autonomy means no single body can force change.On FIGC-controlled programmes, Gravina argued the federation has delivered in areas where it holds clear authority, contrasting that with stalled progress where interests overlap.He continued: “It is no coincidence that in areas which fall directly and exclusively within the Federation’s competence… considerable results have been achieved.”The report now functions as a de facto manifesto ahead of FIGC’s extraordinary elective assembly on June 22, when the next president will inherit both the political pressure of recent results and the structural reforms the document sets out.