Italian football clubs lost 3.6 billion euros during the Covid pandemic

(Patria) - Italian professional football clubs lost 3.6 billion euros between 2019 and 2022 due to Covid-related restrictions and the pandemic, according to the annual report.

According to the 2023 edition of ReportCalcio published by the Italian Football Federation, the top three divisions lost an average of 1.2 billion euros annually during the Covid period, while their cumulative losses amounted to 412 million euros in 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic.

Losses for the 2021-22 season alone, the last considered for this report, amounted to 1.4 billion euros, "the worst ever recorded in the fifteen years this annual report has been published," the statement said, as reported by AFP.

The debt of Italian professional football reached 5.6 billion euros in the 2021-2022 period, an increase of 4.4 percent compared to the previous year.

The report's authors welcomed the joint bid by Italy and Turkey to host Euro 2032 as a "unique opportunity" to increase ticket revenue by modernising notoriously outdated stadiums.

Revenue from tickets for all Italian professional football amounted to 254 million euros in the 2021-2022 season, compared to 226 million a year earlier, but still far from the 341 million in 2018-2019, the season before the pandemic.

For comparison, Manchester United generated 126 million euros in ticket revenue in the 2021-2022 period, according to a Deloitte report.