Last month Inter President Erick Thohir revealed that one day he hopes that there will be a Milan derby played in Singapore, among other important Serie A games, in order to boost the visibility and appeal of the league.
This would be a bold step, and one that ultimately could rip the heart out from Italian football if it were to become reality.
There is precedence for Italian sides playing abroad. The Supercoppa Italiana has been played in Tripoli, New Jersey and most recently Beijing over the past decade or so. Looking at the attendance figures for each of these games it is clear that there is a global appeal for Calcio; the 2011 Supercoppa saw Milan overcome Inter in a thrilling match in front of a packed Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing and yet in recent years when the Supercoppa has been played on Italian soil the attendances have generally been poor.
There is a clear demand for fans of calcio across the globe to see their sides first hand, but what would taking signature matches away from the local fans do?
There is only one country where they have leagues in a variety of sports that play matches abroad with success and that is the United States. The prime example is the NFL international series currently played in London. The success of this series is, most importantly, building the sport in the UK; but many fans in the USA feel cheated as they lose out on a home match; especially when there are only 8 home games in the season.
Would it have been deemed a success if the sport was well established in the UK; probably not. Serie A is competing against other well established European Leagues such as the English Premier League (EPL) so the market is already saturated.
The EPL seems to have the right idea with a pre-season tournament that enables fans in Asia to see semi-competitive football every two seasons with the Premier League Asia Trophy. The EPL previously considered taking league games abroad but the backlash from the fans has put the idea to bed for the future. If Serie A were to allow games to be played abroad they would face a similar, if not heavier, backlash from the Ultras.
Another key issue that hinders any prospect of this happening is simply the distance that teams would have to travel. It is 12 hours from Malpensa to Singapore each way; can it be justified to play just one game? Clearly this would not be possible unless teams were given an extra long break between their Singapore fixture and their next game. This works in the NFL as each team has a bi-week following playing in London, however in a 38 game season where fixtures are liable to change it simply would not be feasible.
Players would not want to travel though five time zones to and from the game and end up playing another game just days after travelling a total of 12,000 miles within days; it would affect their performances for at least a week as players struggle with jet lag and ideally they would be spending at least a week in Singapore to acclimatise.
Thohir, an Indonesian businessman, can see the potential of tapping the local South East Asia market by providing what no other league has done and provide a full-on competitive fixture. Italian sides did not take the same chances as the likes of Manchester United, Real Madrid or Barcelona by planning lucrative pre-season tours and have fallen behind in exploiting potential overseas markets.
One thing that is certain is that the Italian game is playing catch-up with both the EPL, Spanish Primera Division and now arguably the German Bundesliga. Playing marquee fixtures such as the Derby della Madonnina could ensure sold out venues in South East Asia and open new revenue streams, but at the same time risk irking the Italian fans who are prepared to pay to watch their side week-in, week-out regardless of performance.
The most important role of any sporting side is the relationship it holds with the local fans; playing a ‘home’ game some 6,000 miles away would alienate the core fan base and take away the highlights of the Italian game from the peninsula.
The EPL is the model to follow; create a competitive pre-season tournament that features the best sides that Serie A has to offer and a compromise is met as global followers of Serie A sides get to see their idols play, clubs increase their global visibility and the league rightly stays in Italy.
