Juventus, Inter and Milan: "We want Serie A with 18 teams"
That was the headline that La Repubblica used in their website.
Juventus, Inter and Milan want Serie A with 18 teams. They are not the only ones. But they are bound by a very strong alliance, on this issue and others. To give an idea, it suffices to tell how the Juventus and Inter directors, furious opponents only a few hours earlier at San Siro, arrived together at the club meeting in Milan.
The reason is that the three big teams had previously met in a programmatic meeting on political and economic issues. In short, now there is an open front within Serie A: that of Serie A with 18 teams.
Serie A with 18 teams: why the big clubs want reform
The driving force behind this initiative is the need to streamline an increasingly crowded schedule. From the next season onwards, European competitions will be more intrusive: they will occupy four additional dates just for the group stage. The Champions League will also have an extra round in the knockout stage. Then, at the end of the season, the first edition of the quadrennial Club World Cup will kick off: more matches that will extend the season well beyond the beginning of June.
In short, an overcrowding of dates that would make it impossible to play a 2025/26 Serie A season with 38 matchdays without the risk of starting, for those participating in the new World Cup, with one or two matches delayed compared to other teams, to allow the entire team to take the necessary vacations.
This is where the front arises. And beware: the big three have come out into the open, but they are not alone. At least three, perhaps four, other teams hold similar positions. Plus, there are some who are still on the fence.
Naturally, the smaller clubs are strongly opposed: Monza is ready to barricade itself, but it's not alone. In fact, there are even those threatening legal actions, in case such a reform were ever implemented.
In short, Serie A is at a very high risk of division. The discussion on reform is just beginning: within a week, the FIGC will produce a strategic plan to reform football and present it to the leagues in the Federal Council. They will have to decide whether to accept the challenge or to sink any project.
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