A comparative panel brought together two of the continent’s top leagues: Lega Calcio Serie A, represented by CEO Luigi De Siervo, and LaLiga, represented by President Javier Tebas, with Kike Levy of Gameday moderating. The debate covered several topics, including television rights, sustainability, relations with UEFA and FIFA, and the fight against piracy. Luigi De Siervo opened the discussion, focusing on how the rights system has changed with the emergence, in the post-Covid period, of different distribution channels.
He then turned to the governance system, characterized by the clear dominance of FIFA and UEFA over national leagues, and stressed the firm determination of Serie A and LaLiga to keep the twenty-club format, in contrast to the reduction that other tournaments have adopted out of necessity.
Building on this, Tebas reiterated that national leagues need to plan for the medium and long term to offset an inevitable economic loss, which is set to penalize clubs not taking part in continental competitions and to widen the gap in favor of the few dominant clubs, at the expense of the rest of the football movement.
“The big clubs benefit from this system,” said De Siervo. “We must try to gap these imbalances.” Tebas echoed him: “We, as LaLiga, defend competition. We have to work to change it. Ten years ago I had already anticipated what is happening today. The ruling on the Super League was clear, even though the ecosystem continues to deteriorate.”
On the subject of calendars, the objective difficulty also emerged clearly of fitting national league calendars around the growing number of matches in continental and intercontinental competitions.
On economic sustainability, the discussion painted a picture marked by sharp disparities between clubs, and reaffirmed the urgency of rebalancing the system. Regarding future goals, De Siervo emphasized the importance of continuing to invest in fan management and of pursuing the fight against piracy uncompromisingly.
Tebas, for his part, highlighted at the end the potential of artificial intelligence to level out the league’s competitiveness, narrowing the gap between top-tier clubs and those in the middle and lower parts of the table.