Serie A gets another new boss with Dal Pino given mandate to sort mess out

January 10 – Italy’s Serie A, mired in multiple integrity issues including its failure to act on institutional racist issues, election malfeasance and its controversial Super Cup deal with Saudi Arabia, has elected Paolo Dal Pino as its new president.

Dal Pino is the chief executive of Telit Communications and has previously been CEO of Wind and Pirelli. He takes on a major role in attempting to restore commercial and moral credibility to one of Europe’s Big 5 leagues that every week is making headlines for the wrong integrity reasons.

Dal Pino beat rival Gaetano Miccichè to the position with 12 votes, one more than the required 11.

Miccichè had been forced to resign from the role in November following an investigation into election irregularities in 2018 when he first took the post. Miccichè received seven votes.

While racist issues will be at the top of Dal Pino’s ‘to fix’ list, he also has the crucial commercial issue of sorting out Serie A’s broadcast rights strategy. The Saudi Super Cup hosting is an issue that could eventually cost the league up to $500 million of rights fees from beIN Sport who have threatened to pull their buy if Serie A continue with the Saudi deal.

Domestically the broadcast strategy is also unclear with Mediapro saying it plans to launch a dedicated football channel in the Italian market.

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