Soccer remains an obsession for many Italians, filling up the newspapers' sports pages and paying handsome salaries for the top players. But the sport has failed to modernize itself the way it has in England.

In the 1980s and 1990s many of the sport's biggest stars in their prime played for Italian teams, from Diego Maradona to Michel Platini, from Paul Gascoigne to Zinedine Zidane. Now, with a few exceptions, it is the Premier League and the Spanish Liga that attract the greatest names.

The team dominating the Italian domestic league, Inter Milan, clinched a fourth consecutive Serie A title but lost in the first knockout round to Manchester United. Highlighting the gap between Premier League clubs and Italian teams, Juventus was eliminated by Chelsea and Roma by Arsenal, also in the first knockout round. Fiorentina didn't make it out of the group stage.

There are said to be structural problems: financial backing of the teams is weaker; there has been no investment in modernizing stadiums as the clubs don't own them; hard-core fans, who are generally opposed to changes, still hold too much sway with the clubs; the sport's ruling class hasn't changed in two decades; the 2006 scandal hit the international image of Italian football, and as a consequence its power.

Rome Final Underlines Decline of Italian Soccer

Associated Press
By Alessandra Rizzo; May 26, 2009 

ROME (AP) - While Italian clubs once dominated Europe, the country can only sit back and watch as the Champions League final is played in Rome between teams from England and Spain.

Recent success at the World Cup and even in the Champions League feels like an eternity ago as Italian clubs failed to reach the quarterfinals in the Champions League this season for the first time in seven years.

With Udinese going only one step further before elimination in the UEFA Cup, talk of the decline of Italian soccer has been mounting.

Several problems have hit the game in past years: A match-fixing scandal damaged the sport's credibility and left many fans disillusioned; hooliganism has continued even as authorities have taken steps to fight it; and stadiums have become outdated and unfit for families.

"The decline of the Serie A is pretty much undeniable," said Gabriele Marcotti, a book author and the European soccer correspondent for the Times of London.

"Italian football has been completely and utterly mismanaged, to the point that where it has succeeded it has succeeded in spite of the people running it," said Marcotti. "Here it is more important to be No. 1 in a low-quality environment than be No. 2 in a high-quality environment."

As a result, Serie A has lost prestige.

In the 1980s and 1990s many of the sport's biggest stars in their prime played for Italian teams, from Diego Maradona to Michel Platini, from Paul Gascoigne to Zinedine Zidane. Now, with a few exceptions, it is the Premier League and the Spanish Liga that attract the greatest names.

On Wednesday, Manchester United will play Barcelona in the final at Rome's Stadio Olimpico.

In the 1990s, an Italian club - either AC Milan or Juventus - made an appearance in the Champions League final seven times, including six straight from 1993 to 1998. They won a combined three titles.

Since 2000, AC Milan won the trophy twice, in 2003 and 2007.

"Obviously it takes time for the decline to filter through to the biggest clubs," Marcotti said.

The team dominating the Italian domestic league, Inter Milan, has failed to make any headway in Europe. This year Jose Mourinho's Inter clinched a fourth consecutive Serie A title but lost in the first knockout round to Manchester United.

Highlighting the gap between Premier League clubs and Italian teams, Juventus was eliminated by Chelsea and Roma by Arsenal, also in the first knockout round. Fiorentina didn't make it out of the group stage.

Soccer remains an obsession for many Italians, filling up the newspapers' sports pages and paying handsome salaries for the top players. But the sport has failed to modernize itself the way it has in England.

Foot pointed to what he said are structural problems: financial backing of the teams is weaker; there has been no investment in modernizing stadiums as the clubs don't own them; hard-core fans, who are generally opposed to changes, still hold too much sway with the clubs; the sport's ruling class hasn't changed in two decades; the 2006 scandal hit the international image of Italian football, and as a consequence its power.

"The game itself is less exciting, slower. There are more fouls. There's more arguing with the referees," Foot added.

One step that many experts praise is a plan by Serie A clubs to break away from the second-tier Serie B and create their own independent top flight similar to the Premier League - a model that made English clubs the richest in the world.

"One encouraging aspect is that in certain areas of decline we have already hit rock bottom," said Marcotti. "When it comes to running football if you make the wrong decisions then you have negative effects for a while."

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