Albert Einstein may have coined the phrase “Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over and Expecting Different Results” although he was likely not a football fan, this famous “quote” perfectly encapsulates the current state of Italian football. For over a decade, the Azzurri and the FIGC (Italian Football Federation) have stared at a burning house and decided that the solution is to rearrange the furniture. Real improvement is not a by product of hope; it is the result of structural evolution. When we avoid the pain of change, we don’t preserve the status quo—we simply subsidise a slower, more painful decline. This holds for Italian Football as much as it holds for business organisations.

Italian football was once the “Seven Sisters” era—the undisputed centre of the sporting universe. Today, it is a cautionary tale of what happens when a system prioritises nostalgia and short-term survival over modern infrastructure. Failing to qualify for three consecutive World Cups is not a a fluke; it is a systemic failure.

To fix the “Calcio” ecosystem, the following reforms have been proposed for years, yet they remain bogged down by bureaucracy and a lack of political will:

• Stadium Ownership and Bureaucracy: Unlike the English Premier League or the German Bundesliga, most Italian clubs do not own their stadiums. They rent crumbling, municipality-owned arenas with running tracks that distance fans from the pitch. A streamlined legislative path to bypass local council red tape, allowing clubs to build modern, multi-use precincts that generate 364 days of non-matchday revenue.
• The “Second Teams” Revolution: For years, young Italian talents have withered on the benches of Serie A or been lost in the “loan army” carousel of Serie C. Mandating or incentivising “U23” teams in the professional pyramid (as Juventus and Atalanta have started to do) to bridge the gap between youth academies and the first team, is so much needed.
• Governance and League Size: Serie A remains a 20-team league, diluting the quality and spreading TV rights revenue too thin. Reducing the league to 18 teams to increase the density of “big matches,” reduce player fatigue, and ensure a higher standard of competition, would help.
• Digital Transformation and Global Marketing: While the Premier League marketed itself as a global entertainment product, Serie A remained a local sporting event. There is a much needed total overhaul of international broadcasting strategies and a pivot toward “content-first” fan engagement to capture the Gen Z demographic.

The decline of a football giant, like Italy, is no different from the decline of any business. In business, leaders often mistake “consistency” for “stagnation.” They believe that if they just work harder at their past modus operandi, then results will eventually follow.

Businesses often avoid structural pivots—like migrating to cloud infrastructure, adopting AI, or flattening management hierarchies—because the transition is “too expensive” or “too disruptive.” This is a fallacy.

The institutional resistance seen in Italian football mirrors a common “identity trap” found in SMEs and family businesses, where legacy and sentiment often paralyse strategic modernisation. Much like the FIGC’s historical reliance on past prestige while failing to overhaul youth scouting or stadium infrastructure, many family firms resist professionalising their management or adopting digital transformation because it threatens the “traditional” way of operating that brought them initial success. This resistance usually manifests as a refusal to separate ownership from control; founders often view outside expertise or merit-based governance as a dilution of the family brand rather than a necessary evolution for global competitiveness. Consequently, just as Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup exposed a systemic decay hidden behind a trophy-laden history, businesses that cling to insular, “old-guard” mentalities risk a sudden loss of market relevance when their traditional models are disrupted by more agile, data-driven competitors.

This evolution often demands a painful “cultural surgery,” where a business organisation must accept that the very people who built the company’s past may not be the ones to lead its future. In both football federations and family-run SMEs, there are often pivotal figures—long-tenured directors or trusted “old-guard” managers—whose deep expertise is eclipsed by their absolute refusal to adapt to new methodologies. Maintaining these individuals out of loyalty or fear of disruption creates a bottleneck that stifles innovation; therefore, true modernisation frequently requires the difficult & painful decision to part ways with these resistant pillars. Ultimately, protecting the long-term survival of the institution must take precedence over the comfort of individuals who would rather see the ship stuck in familiar waters than learn to navigate a new sea.

Sustainable growth is rarely found in the “comfort zone.” In Italian football, the comfort was the memory of the 2006 World Cup win. In business, it’s often a legacy product that still pays the bills. By the time that legacy product stops selling, the company has lost the agility required to innovate. Italian football is currently at a crossroads, trapped in a loop of doing the same things—hiring the same types of coaches, using the same aging stadiums, and relying on the same outdated governance—while expecting to magically reclaim the throne of world football.

In both sports and business, ignorance is not a lack of knowledge; it is the refusal to act on what you already know to be true. To achieve different results, one must become a different entity. If you aren’t feeling the growing pains of change, you are likely feeling the dull ache of obsolescence.