Serie A is considering increasing financial incentives for sending Supercoppa Italiana players to league matches. This season’s Italian Super Cup featured a four-team format for the first time, with a miniature tournament held in Saudi Arabia. For the Overseas Super Cup, the prize money for the competition was increased to $25 million, which was divided among the 20 Serie A teams. Now, the Italian federation wants to share that success with Serie A play.
Serie A president Lorenzo Casini spoke at the Social Football Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He spoke about the feasibility of spreading Italian football around the world. The league has never held regular season games outside of Italy. Casini said there is now a possibility that all 10 matches in Serie A involving all 20 teams could be held overseas. The league appreciates that, but there are some big concerns that need to be addressed, particularly with how Italian fans are treated.
Nevertheless, Casini said two locations stand out among the locations that could hold league matches if Serie A were to cross borders.
“In the future, the U.S. may be a logical place to go given the investment towards the 2026 World Cup,” Casini said. “And then there’s India, which we don’t go to to play cricket, but it’s a new world and we had champions like this.” [Alessandro] Del Piero tried to play there.
The Italian Super Cup is not unusual for overseas matches. The United States, China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have each hosted the Supercoppa Italiana multiple times. However, sending regular season games to each country would deprive Serie A teams of home games.
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="670" width="1200" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
“The first one is obviously with fans who may be absent for a day,” Casini said. “The location will still be determined. Moreover, at the moment it is only possible with the permission of FIFA and UEFA.”
Watch Serie A league games from other countries
Supercoppa Italiana matches draw large crowds. Attendance numbers for overseas games between league winners and Italian cup winners are generally strong. The 2024 Super Cup final between Napoli and Inter Milan saw a capacity crowd of 24,900 at Riyadh’s KSU Stadium. Three of the four trips to China drew more than 66,000 viewers. The last time this match was played in the United States was in 2003. At the time, 54,000 fans gathered at Giants Stadium in New Jersey to watch Juventus defeat Milan.
However, Serie A’s move to a four-team system has highlighted the potential problems of moving large numbers of matches overseas. Only 7,000 fans turned out to watch Napoli beat Fiorentina. These are two of the most famous clubs in Italy. Although they don’t quite match the stature of Inter Milan or Juventus, Napoli and Fiorentina are certainly in the top half of Italy’s popularity. Even if these two teams cannot fill the 25,000-seat venue, it is unlikely that any other Italian club will. For example, Frosinone vs. Salernitana would struggle to attract spectators if the full matchday was played in India or the United States.
Photo: Imago