Over the past few weeks I have found myself watching quite a bit of Italian football and one thing has really struck me – where have all the fans gone?

Admittedly, the games I saw were not massively high profile, but even so I was shocked by the swathes of empty seats. I actually thought one game was being played behind closed doors the ground was so empty.

When I used to watch Italian football on a more regular basis in the 1980s and 90s, I don’t remember the grounds being anything like as sparsely populated.

This absence of supporters in Italy looks even worse when you compare it with the English Premier League, which is running at near capacity in spectator terms and where clubs are desperately trying to boost their capacity.

Liverpool have just expanded Anfield but would love to make it even bigger; Everton are pushing ahead with plans to build a huge new stadium; Tottenham Hotspur are midway through constructing their larger new arena; Manchester United are hoping to increase the capacity at Old Trafford and Chelsea have just got the go-ahead to build a new stadium that will add 50 per cent to attendances.

And all that just to try and keep up with the seemingly insatiable demand for the Premier League ‘product’, as the marketing people like to call it.

Yet in the south of Europe, in one of the oldest and most famous leagues in the Europe, Italian teams have the opposite problem.

The latest data I was able to find shows that while the Premier League is running at just over 94 per cent capacity, Serie A is down at 53 per cent. That is an immense difference.

If people don’t feel comfortable or safe going to watch a game of football at the weekend, they will stay home. Or go to Ikea

The reasons for the poor attendance levels in Italy are numerous, according to fans of the game I have spoken too, and include the introduction of pay TV and a period where the quality of Italian football has not been at its best.

But by far the biggest issue seems to be the condition of the grounds.

Unlike in England, most of the stadiums in Italy are owned by local authorities, not by the clubs themselves. This means the grounds are not properly maintained and updated and, as a result, the overall match day experience suffers.

And, as English football learned in the 1980s, if people don’t feel comfortable or safe going to watch a game of football at the weekend, they will stay home. Or go to Ikea.

Italian clubs are aware of the problem and, led by Juventus, who moved into their own stadium in 2011, there is a growing desire among them to own their own grounds and turn them into more attractive venues.

But there is still a long way to go before that process will have the desired effect on attendances. In the meantime, teams will have to battle it out in huge stadia with row upon row of empty seats.

And, even though I am no fan of Italian football, it is a pretty sorry sight to see.

Ice, ice baby

It’s only football, you often hear people say, it has no bearing on real life.

Well, maybe it doesn’t in the greater scheme of things… but football does, apparently, seem to have a direct effect on the creation of new life.

Remember how Iceland knocked England out of Euro 16 last summer? Of course you do. Well, exactly nine months later Icelandic hospitals reported a massive surge in the number of new births. Epidural records were broken.

Coincidence? Maybe.

But far more likely is that celebrating Icelandic fans decided to mark last summer’s incredible sporting triumph by partying hard and then spending the night creating their own little bits of memorabilia – a whole new bunch of mini-Vikings.

You would imagine that the corresponding weekend in England probably saw a sharp reduction in the number of births. Sex was the last thing on an England fan’s mind that night, having just watched their team screwed on the pitch…

Awards that don’t help

Last week the annual Football Black List awards were held in London.

This year’s winners included people like Brighton and Hove Albion manager Chris Hughton, West Bromwich Albion coach Darren Moore and former Manchester United striker Andy Cole.

Although I can understand the idea behind these awards, I am not sure if this sort of positive discrimination is actually helpful.

To me, and the vast majority of football fans, Andy Cole was just another player. Not a black one or an African one or a Caribbean one. Just a footballer.

While the concept behind awards like the Football Black List is noble, I see them as divisive. They serve to underline and emphasise differences between races rather that doing what we should be doing, in my opinion, which is pointing out that race is irrelevant.

Dry cry for them, Argentina

I make no secret of the fact that I don’t care much about Argentina.

Ever since 1986, when Diego Maradona’s blatant cheating broke my teenage heart, I have hated their successes and thoroughly enjoyed their failures.

But even I think they were hard done by last week when just hours before their crucial World Cup qualifying game against Bolivia, Lionel Messi was handed a four-match ban for abusing an assistant referee in their previous game.

I think it’s fair to say Argentina’s management were not impressed. And they may have a point.

For starters, the rules of the game, as they currently stand, say that players can only be retrospectively punished for a crime if the match officials didn’t see the incident. If the referee and his assistants are aware of something but decide not to act then that should be that. Case closed.

In Messi’s case the official quite clearly saw and heard the rather uncomplimentary things the player said involving his mother because he said them to his face. But the officials decided not to take any action or even put the incident in the match report. Theoretically that should have been that.

Yet Fifa decided to prosecute the player anyway based on, admittedly compelling, video evidence – Messi may have denied he was aiming his insults at the linesman, but the video says he was.

Even if we put that bit of controversy to one side, how can it be fair to ban Messi just hours before a crucial game? The Argentineans didn’t even have chance to launch an appeal. And they went on to lose the match 2-0.

It feels very much like the suspension was rushed through just to have the worst possible effect on Argentina and throw another spanner in the works of their already shaky qualifying campaign.

I’m trying not to laugh. Honest.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade