Italian football could be due for a major shake-up if a proposal by the country’s leadership comes to fruition.
According to reports, current FIGC boss Gabriele Gravina is looking at the possibility of combining Serie B and Serie C, starting from the 2024/2025 season. For those who don’t follow calcio, Serie B and Serie C are the second and third tiers of the Italian football pyramid.
Gravina feels that creating a Serie B/C entity would be in the best interest of football in the country, noting in a recent interview with Sky Italia, “[To be honest], three levels of professional football are no longer sustainable. I have proposed a merger between Serie B and Serie C from 2024-25 to achieve better sustainability conditions than the [current] system.”
Another Gravina-driven concept is the creation of a 16 or an 18-team Serie A. As of now, Italian football’s upper echelon has 20 teams competing in it. Many of Europe’s biggest leagues do have 20 in their top flight, including the English Premier League and Ligue 1, whereas Germany’s Bundesliga only has 18.
However, Ligue 1 will be going back to 18 teams starting in the 2023/24 campaign, and so it will be very interesting to see if drastic changes for Italian football will be getting underway pretty soon.
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