Lega Serie A, Ceo De Siervo confirm the Cup with all 20 A clubs in the USA during the World Cup

Luigi De Siervo, CEO of  Lega Calcio, spoke to Reuters about the plan to bring Serie A to the United States during the next World Cup in Qatar. A news known for a couple of weeks that we had anticipated on TMW with dates and details, which De Siervo himself comments to the agency: "We want to keep our players in shape while we promote ourselves in a market that we consider strategic. They would have been programmed to avoid any overlap with the World Cup calendar ", his words reported by Calcio & Finanza.

Bringing Serie A to the United States during the World Cup in Qatar.
A difficult, complicated, expensive, but rightly ambitious and fundamental project to increase the penetration of Italian football in what is considered a strategic market for the development of our football. A vision that the CEO Luigi De Siervo wanted to touch with his hand. A design that originates from the sporting need to keep active the players who will not participate in the next World Cup and that Tuttomercatoweb.com can unveil a preview. Because the common thread between Italy and the USA is a flight, which returned last night, which brought Luigi De Siervo and the Marketing Director Michele Ciccarese from New York. In the Big Apple, where the League opened a new office on 6th Avenue.
"We are in an embryonic phase, we are studying this project that we have on the table for a couple of months. ",Andrea Butti, the Head of Competitions of the League, explains exclusively to Tuttomercatoweb, when asked about the matter .

HOW THE IDEA IS BORN
Butti tells why the Lega of Serie A has decided to undertake this challenging and ambitious journey. "We started from a sporting base: 736 players from all qualified national teams participate in a World Cup. By splitting between those who play in the different leagues, starting from what happened in 2018 in Russia, the Serie A League has 'sent' 58 players registered for the World Cup ". A kermesse where there was no Italian national team, ("and everyone's hope there will be in Qatar "), but even in that case "the estimate is 80-85 players in all - continues the Head of Operations of the League -. This number serves as a starting point: in Serie A League there are about 650 players registered among the various teams. By sending 80, 85, there remain a conspicuous number free from sporting commitments for a month and a half two, given that the championship will be suspended from 13 November to the beginning of January".

COSTS AND SPONSORS
That of De Siervo and Ciccarese was an 'exploratory' mission. They talked about it with broadcasters and sponsors, because a similar project has significant costs. In the States the rights are owned by CBS Sports, which has invested heavily in Italian football, the logic leads us to think that it is the main suspect who is transmitting this tournament with all the outlines still clearly to be defined. And important sponsors will also be needed to cover the travel costs of the 20 Serie A clubs. 20 companies, 20 hotels, 20 airplanes, 20 movements of thousands of people including footballers, staff and employees of the various clubs. How to support it all? "A plan is the structure of the organization of the tournament, the setting up and the logistic part, which has a fundamental component. On the other hand, there is the cost structure that must support and bear the investment: it must cover the costs and generate revenues ".

THE STRUCTURE OF THE CUP
Butti tries to clarify the structure of the tournament. "About twenty days in all. This one and a half-two month break requires a sort of pre-season, also because from January to June it will be a tour de force. So we thought of structuring a tournament with an initial group stage and a follow a tennis scoreboard with quarter-final, semifinal and final". It all starts with a question. "We asked ourselves a sporting question. What to do to keep the players' level of preparation high during the break? The boys have to work but also play games, because in fact it would be a preseason. The tournament will last about twenty days, or a conspicuous period of work and matches, which will allow everyone to arrive in January on par with those who will participate in Qatar".

THE WORLD 'PROBLEM' AND THE SOLUTION OF THE LEAGUE
In the States the project has been received very positively but there are clear obstacles now along the way. The first is to understand the feasibility of such a tournament, even with players not called up, at the same time as the World Cup in Qatar. The regulation is clear: the only obligation for the national leagues is to 'free' the players but nothing prevents them from organizing tournaments or even playing championships. A clear example is the MLS and the J-League which, for scheduling reasons, played their championships at the same time as the summer World Cup. This time Qatar coincides with the European football calendar and for this reason the League has studied this ambitious tournament. The second obligation is 'commercial', that is not to go simultaneously with the World Cup. Precisely for this reason, we have structured the timetables so as not to go simultaneously with the Qatar races. It is an event that leaves spaces at multiple times and we tried to occupy the windows in the best possible way".

AN AMBITIOUS PROJECT
If the feedback collected from most of the Serie A clubs is positive, even after the initial announcement at the end of January by De Siervo, Butti and Lega A want to specify, about the tournament that "nothing is made that can cause obscurity or damage to FIFA or other institutions."