Modest Carpi will be playing in the top flight next season.

Following a hard-fought 2-1 win over Bologna at the Matusa Stadium on Saturday, Frosinone made a giant step towards securing their first ever promotion to the Serie A.

With just three games left, Roberto Stellone’s side are four points clear of nearest pursuers Vicenza and Bologna and well on their way to finishing runners-up to Carpi, who made sure of a historic up to the top flight two weeks ago.

The top two in Serie B win automatic promotion to Serie A.

Many might have thought that fallen giants Bologna were going to run away with the 2014/15 championship but they were proved wrong as Carpi and Frosinone week after week showed they were no pushovers despite operating on a more restricted budget than the others.

Bologna, seven times Italian champions, got a significant financial boost in mid-October when the club was purchased by a North American group of investors led by New York lawyer Joe Tacopina and Montreal Impact FC president Joey Saputo.

The new owners immediately made a bold statement of intent that they wanted to steer Bologna back to Serie A.

During the January transfer window, Tacopina did not leave any stone unturned as Bologna prised a number of players from the Serie A, among whom Ibrahima Mbaye (Inter) and Da Costa, Gianluca Sansone, Daniele Gastaldello and Nenad Krsticic (all from Sampdoria), to bolster the squad.

Botched transfer

In winter, Bologna were also on the verge of signing Slovenian attacking midfielder Josip Ilicic from Fiorentina.

At the time, it was rumoured that in spite of the two clubs having agreed on a transfer fee of €5m, the player was not keen on joining a team in Serie B.

Only a few years back, Carpi were still playing fifth-tier football. They were declared bankrupt in 1999 and re-established the following year.

Carpi’s meteoric rise since season 2009/10 is the result of good organisation and excellent forward planning by the club’s administrators.

The transition from amateur football to top class contenders in the space of five years proves that money alone cannot buy success in modern football.

By all means, money is an enabler to success but without serious thought extra cash may become counter-productive.

Remarkably, Carpi, whose financial package for the season is believed to be a modest €3m, were promoted to Serie B for the first time in 2013.

Their low-cost squad is touted to have cost the club’s coffers around €100,000 and the total wage bill for the entire campaign is just €2.5 million.

Carpi, who are based in a town with a population of 67,000 inhabitants in the Emilia Romagna region, play their home games at the Sandro Cabassi Stadium which has a capacity of only 4,144.

Significantly, this venue is approximately five times smaller than the current smallest arena in the Italian top division.

Given that prevailing Serie A rules require stadiums to have a minimum capacity of 20,000 spectators (though special exemptions are occasionally approved), it is still unclear where will Carpi play their home games next season when hosting the likes of champions Juventus, Roma, Napoli or Inter.

In this regard, Frosinone had a better foresight as only a few days ago they unveiled the final plans of their new Casaleno Stadium which cost around €18m to complete.

The stadium is expected to be ready by September, hopefully in time for Frosinone’s baptism of fire among the elite.

Only last February, Lazio chief Claudio Lotito, in a leaked telephone conversation, complained that the promotion of small clubs like Carpi would limit television money to Serie A clubs.

Businesswise, Lotito, widely considered as Italian Football Federation president Carlo Tavecchio’s right-hand man, could have a point but from a purely sporting point-of-view, the promotion of Carpi and Frosinone is an exciting breath of fresh air to Italian soccer in general.