New Serie A Head Discloses 2025/2026 Starting Date
Ezio Maria Simonelli recently replaced Lorenzo Casini as the Serie A president and had his first interview since taking charge. He announced the starting date of the next season and more talking to Radio Rai.
'I can stay that, at 99 percent, the next campaign will begin on August 23rd/24th. We want to avoid playing on the 15th. The packed schedule is the true problem of football. It affects the teams, the coaches, and the players. However, it doesn't depend on us. We can't do anything to reduce the number of games.'
Simonelli was quizzed about Serie A potentially going back to an 18-team format to address the issue.
'I will let the assembly decide on these topics. A president provocatively said that he'd have an eight-club league. Cutting down the number of sides would lead to fewer matches, but the championship would be less riveting and wouldn't represent the whole country like now. This change doesn't seem feasible in short order to me. Spain and England have 20 outfits too.'
Instead, Simonelli and a few Serie A constituents are in favor of changing the VAR protocol.
'The overall judgment can only be positive. Any technology that improves transparency is welcome. However, it needs to follow common sense. We're realizing that it's not working properly in some instances and that there are some bugs. It's not up to us to solve them but to IFAB. There'll be a meeting on March 1st to discuss it. I wish that, as every year, the experience and the errors will produce improvements. I'm open to introducing the coach's challenge.'
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