Serie A, the first Italian football division, will continue to be played with 20 clubs, after the failure of an attempt at reform to move to 18 clubs as in the Bundesliga and Ligue 1. “The current format of the league at 20 teams have been confirmed,” Serie A said in a statement on Monday.
The League assembly, meeting in Milan, overwhelmingly rejected the project. According to Italian media, only Inter Milan, Juventus Turin, AC Milan and AS Roma, which play European competitions almost every year, voted for the reduction to 18 clubs. The other 16 voted against.
The aim of big clubs is to reduce the number of matches to give their best players more recovery time. From next season in particular, teams qualified for the Champions League (4 for Italy) will have to play eight group stage matches instead of six in the current format.
The less posh clubs defended the interest of the more modest to play among the elite: “I am against (the reform), like all the other medium and small clubs. I don’t understand why we should deny so many teams the chance to dream,” Lecce president Saverio Sticchi Damiani declared in January.
