‘Piracy is a huge detriment for Italian football’. So says Luigi De Siervo, speaking at the panel ‘Illegal streams: consequences on football and fans’ on Day One of the Social Football Summit 2023. The talk, also attended by Antonio Amati of Almaviva and Benedetta Liberatore of Agcom, and moderated by Emiliano Mancuso, discussed the issues that link piracy and Italian football.

‘When we talk about a 300 million per year damage,’ explained Lega Serie A CEO De Siervo, ‘we underline how every year teams like Roma and Lazio have to give up one or two champions. We are at a decisive turning point, the law has identified a clear path. We are waiting for a happy day when we will be able to interrupt the broadcasting of the pirate event within thirty minutes. If we want football to become a protagonist again as it has been for the past year, we have to make sure that everything is back on track’.

Benedetta Liberatore, director of Agcom, also gave some clarification regarding the timing of the platform’s launch: ‘We need to be fully aligned so that we can get off to a good start, we are also in contact with the search engines to be effective. We also need some education on the subject: we have to make people understand how we are doing damage to the whole country’.

Antonio Amati, Amministratore delegato di Almaviva, ha infine dato contezza di quello che è stato attuato per combattere la pirateria: «Quello che abbiamo messo noi in essere è un intelligence che catturi e anticipi questi spostamenti nella rete da parte dei criminali. Monitorando questi siti si riesce a intervenire in modo anticipato».