Italy is proposing itself as a trailblazer for some regulatory and technological innovations, as already happened in 2016 with the VAR when Carlo Tavecchio was at the helm of the FIGC. Now the role of innovator falls to the current federal president Gabriele Gravina. In recent days, Gravina wrote to the Ifab – the International Board, the body of FIFA that can change the rules of football – to give Italy’s availability to test the effective time and the VAR on call.
“We want to give our contribution to improve football with the aim of making the game increasingly attractive and spectacular, especially for young people. We know that the path to innovation must be shared and then implemented, but if we don’t start we will never change the status quo”, says Gravina. The idea of the FIGC is to open the Italian youth and amateur championships to the experiment of effective time. Italy would thus become the first country to carry out a test in this area. Furthermore, the effects of the challenge could also be verified, that is, the possibility that coaches or captains can call for an on-field review by the referee. The introduction of an electronic communication system between the coach and the captain during the match is also possible, to circumvent the difficulty of giving instructions in stadiums with a high decibel coefficient of fans.
Furthermore, the FIGC will try to speed up the early closing of the summer market before the start of the championships. A topic that is very close to the hearts of many coaches, tired of starting the championship with so many discontented players in the squad worried only about negotiations with other clubs. “I will soon have meetings in UEFA and I will try to involve my colleagues from other Federations to undertake a shared path, which can give stability to the start of sports competitions” explains Gravina.
Lega Serie A came close to a historic agreement in this sense. CEO Luigi De Siervo had convinced the Premier League, Ligue 1 and Bundesliga to close this transfer window on August 14, three days before the start of the championships. But La Liga opposed, causing the agreement to fall through, because the rigid limits of the financial austerity introduced by Javier Tebas require clubs to sell before being able to sign new purchases in the absence of correct economic parameters. So Spanish clubs needed more time to sell and get in line.
