Italian rugby making tangible strides despite many obstacles at home and abroad

Such is Italy’s passion for sport that it has three daily sports newspapers, one of them being the Milan-based, pink-coloured La Gazetta Dello Sport. Saturday’s edition gave an accurate summation of how football, and specifically Serie A, dominates the sporting landscape.
The first 23 pages, exactly half the paper, was devoted to Serie A, before another 10 pages of football coverage, be it England, the global game, Serie B and Serie C.
It’s a measure of tennis star Jannik Sinner’s impact since becoming his country’s first world number one that his rivalry with Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic accounted for pages 34 and 35, after which cycling, basketball and motor cycling led to the final two pages of world news.
Needless to say, there wasn’t a word on Benetton’s game against Leinster in Treviso that evening or any mention of rugby at all.
It was a similar story in Monday’s edition with the first 39 pages devoted to Serie A followed by another 10 pages of football; cue some motor cycling, tennis, athletics, volleyball, basketball, cycling and world news.
When Italy play in the Six Nations rugby is accommodated among the also-rans but the Gazetta’s priorities show what rugby in Italy is up against.
Despite this, a crowd of 4,500 attended Benetton’s game against Leinster and rugby has a passionate support in pockets such as around Treviso (where there are also 17 smaller clubs), Padova, Parma and Rovigo. But rugby has not made the impact on Italy’s sporting consciousness that was hoped for when the Azzurri were added to the Six Nations in 2000.
During their 36-match Six Nations losing streak from 2014 to 2022 the clarion calls for them to be removed from the championship grew louder.
This ignored the fact that the Six Nations has always been an ‘invitational’ tournament which, with its full stadiums and TV rights, bankrolls the competing unions and federations. While it would be healthier for the game’s growth if there was promotion and relegation, sadly, admitting Georgia at the expense of Italy would not make much economic sense.
Thankfully, the calls for Italy’s demotion have eased since Ange Capuozzo thrillingly created Edoardo Padovani’s 80th-minute try which Paolo Garbisi converted to earn that emotional 22-21 win over Wales in March 2022.
Granted, the promise of Kieran Crowley’s reign was never quite fulfilled. Although more competitive in the 2023 championship, Italy still finished winless and with another wooden spoon while their World Cup non-show was hugely disappointing.
But with a more balanced game under Gonzalo Quesada, last season Italy were desperately unlucky not to overcome France when drawing 13-13 in Marseilles before going on to beat Scotland and Wales.
Their Under-20s have won seven matches in the last three years of the Six Nations, including historic victories over England and France. Despite worrying results at under-18 level, the hope is that the academy structure implemented by Stephen Aboud will be reinstated after it was dismantled by Marzio Innocenti.
After four years at the helm, he was defeated in the Federazione Italiana Rugby presidential elections last month by Andrea Duodo, who was backed by Sergio Parisse, and Duodo has said he would re-evaluate the academy structure as well as raising the profile of club competitions and investing in the southern regions of Italy.
Last season was Treviso’s best since joining the Celtic League in 2010, albeit head coach Marco Bortolami accepts that his team will have to improve to even match last season’s seventh-placed URC finish.
So Italian rugby is making tangible strides despite the many obstacles at home and abroad. Indeed, far from demoting the Azzurri, World Rugby should be doing much more for Italy.
When it recently emerged that the Premiership might explore competing in a British and Irish league it was a reminder that the game keeps feeding from the same trough, just in different ways, rather than exploring new boundaries.
Admittedly, the decision to stage the 2019 World Cup in Japan did buck that trend and was handsomely vindicated. World Rugby is also chasing the almighty buck by having the 2031 World Cup in the USA, but rugby has even less of a presence in the American sporting consciousness than it has in Italy. What’s more, as a sports-mad country with a population of almost 60 million, Italy remains the most commercially untapped market in the game.
Given its infrastructure and stadiums, it is a damning indictment of World Rugby that the World Cup has never been even partially held in Italy whereas it has gone back to France for a second time in five cycles and will next be held in Australia for a third time.
Imagine a World Cup in Italy and what it would do for rugby in that country? Or, for that matter, to have a World Cup in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile one day?
The EPCR have demonstrated some vision in moving the Champions Cup final to Bilbao in 2018 and will return there next season. Some anti-Irish elements across the water complained that the final went back to Dublin two seasons ago for only a fourth time – despite all that the provinces have given the tournament and the fact the venue was chosen as a guaranteed sell-out in the post-pandemic fallout.
By contrast, there were no complaints when Cardiff – where hotel gouging is as brazen as in Dublin – was chosen to host its seventh final later this season. Yes, it’s seventh!
Meanwhile, no city in Italy has hosted a Champions Cup final in the first 31 years of the tournament, which is even more damning of the EPCR than World Rugby. And that’s saying something.
[email protected]