How to Get Serie A Back to The Glory Days!

There was a time when Italy's Serie A was considered by all as the best football league in the world.

Back then, the Premier League was only a couple of seasons old and Scotland could still make World Cups and European Championships on a consistent basis.

However, the Serie A has definitely fallen on hard times - this has been acknowledged by the fact that only 3 Serie A sides at best qualify for the Champions League nowadays; this the result of the Serie A now being considered the 4th best league by UEFA and Italian clubs' poor performances in Europe since Jose Mourinho guided Inter to European Cup glory in Madrid in 2010.

The Milan derby is still considered one of the great games of world football

European performances aside, it is still a pretty decent league to follow and clubs like AC Milan, Internazionale, Juventus, Torino, Roma, Lazio, Fiorentina and Sampdoria, etc. definitely have their fans from around the world who have been brought up on their success in the 1980s and 1990s.

But it is quite clear that Serie A definitely needs to be reformed to get back into the top 3 leagues in Europe - and the world.

The Serie A has the goods and potential to be number 1 again but just like the English clubs did in the early 1990s, they need to move away from the traditional ways and get back to out of box thinking to get them back there.

Big and empty - Italy's stadia need a bit of a rethink

1. New stadia - Italy's stadia were last revamped in 1990 and little has been done to keep them fresh and up to date with the demands of football fans today - a reason why Juventus are streaking ahead of the rest with their swanky new stadium. Many Serie A clubs play at multi-purpose stadia meaning fans are far away from the pitch (which is deliberately done on purpose considering the issues that Italian football has with gangs and hooligans) - in terms of atmosphere, they certainly rate far lower than English and German stadia. It is time for Italy's fabled football grounds to be redeveloped - but it will require an incentive to do so, i.e. hosting a World Cup or Euros.

2. Broadcasting deals - the Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga have blossomed thanks to big money broadcasting deals and while Serie A does have a substantially healthy broadcasting deal, it pales in comparison to the Premier League. Could the Serie A be remarketed as a compliment to the EPL which really is effectively still mainly played on Saturday afternoons? It requires a bit of out-of-box thinking from Italian football to get a multi-billion dollar TV deal but that seems to be lacking right now.

Roman Abramovich could probably afford Chelsea - and a Serie A club

3. Attracting investors - Apart from Inter, the billionaires from the Middle and Far East are not really interested in investing in Serie A clubs - perhaps put off by the mafia and the corruption in Italy. While most traditional football fans have been against the likes of Roman Abramovich and the Sheikhs taking over clubs and turning league football into fantasy football, the success of Chelsea, Man City, PSG and AS Monaco has definitely boosted their profile immeasurably and will pay dividends eventually. Perhaps, the Serie A needs a big sugar daddy during Italy's economic downturn to put a real game changer in the works.