“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Orson Welles, The Third Man, 1949

Is controversy and change what Italian football needs right now? Because that’s probably what it will be getting. The prospective break-away will shape the future of Italian football, having suffered many twists and turns over the past few years, from corruption to fan violence. Will it rise out from the dark and produce the goods on the big stage as other Italians have done in the past?

In an attempt to emulate the success of the 1992 Premier league formation, Serie A is set to break away from Serie B. Realising how the English top division has prospered through the ability to negotiate its own television deal and how it has become the most lucrative competition in the world, the top Italian division is looking to bring more money into the division to enable it to compete on a level playing field with the other top football leagues.

The major factor in the move is the disagreement with Serie B over television rights, with a final offer of 65 million euros, but second tier clubs are widely expected to refuse that deal in a meeting later this week. Serie B clubs have struggled with a lack of a television deal last year and falling attendances but feel the money offered does not represent value. In comparison to England’s Coca Cola Championship, the Italian league is not even close in terms of money, while attendances are also much higher in England, despite inflation ticket prices, with QPR pricing some seats at a landmark £50 recently.

In February 1992, the old Division One broke away from the English League in a bid to compete with foreign opposition, with Serie A the leading competition in world football at the time. The clubs decided to sell the rights to BSkyB, a move which proved correct over time, and raked in the pound notes, with even more profitable deals being negotiated until present day for broadcasting rights at home and abroad. Unsurprisingly the competition seems as healthy as ever, with 50% of the television income split among the clubs, while another 25% depends on the number of broadcast matches a club is involved in. The final quarter is determined on merit, with Manchester United earning up to £50m last season for winning the title.

While there is a disagreement between the top tiers of Italian football, another issue is the fragile situation concerning how television money is split. With 26 of the 30 million (87%) football supporters supporting one of the ‘Big Three’ sides (Juventus, AC and Inter), there is little left for the other sides. The household names negotiate their own deals, earning huge sums in the process. This means roughly three quarters of the league, excluding Lazio and Roma, have an income of up to 10 times less then their rivals. The huge gulf in monetary terms subsequently causes another one in footballing quality. It does not help that Inter and AC Milan both have billionaire owners backing their cause.

If Serie A is to compete with its rivals, a joint deal much first be made to increase internal competition to help more sides break the stranglehold over the Scudetto. After all, money from European competition, gives the big clubs an advantage anyway, and to promote Serie A, this has to be done. After the Calciopoli scandal, and the emigration of Italian international abroad after the 2006 World Cup success, the popularity of the league was at an all time low. But with big names returning, it has undertaken a renaissance. With Jose Mourinho arriving in the black and blue half of the San Siro, the media have gone into overdrive, with the Portuguese manager criticising Claudio Ranieri amongst others before boasting of his annual salary of 14 million euros. On the other side, the Rossoneri have brought in fading superstar Ronaldinho. The name alone drove season ticket sales through the roof.

Other sides seem to be building on youth to compete, with Napoli and Fiorentina prime examples. Young talents such as Hamsik and Lavezzi signal a different approach to bridge the financial chasm in the league between the big sides and the chasing pack. Juventus have returned and should give a challenge for the title this time around, despite currently languishing in mid-table. Even if the Serie A revolution goes through, Europe now remains a number of years away. With England emerging as a major rival, even if the Italians can compete on a fiscal level, in footballing terms, their teams have been comprehensively beaten by the youth and pace that typifies English football.

Arsenal and Liverpool beat both Milan sides with ease, and they weren’t even the strongest sides in the league. That honour went to European Champions Manchester United and runners up Chelsea. Roma lost once again to Manchester United in last season’s competition, a year after losing 7-1 in the quarter final at Old Trafford. This year they face Chelsea in the Group Stage. If the idea of the big clubs is to bridge the European gap, which already seems huge, despite an Italian side winning Europe’s premier competition just in 2007, then they may be mistaken.

The Milan owner Berlusconi, now serving his fourth term as Prime Minister of Italy, doesn’t seem to be a fan of a shared television deal. In 2006, before he was defeated in the general election, he refused to pass legislation which would make such an agreement become reality. The action prompted Maurizio Zamparini, president of Sicilian team Palermo, to speak his mind, upon seeing Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party refuse to sanction the deal.

“Democracy doesn’t exist in Italy. All there is is a group of powerful clubs that try to get their hands on something that will suit them and help them win for the next few years. We are constantly reinforcing the power of the big clubs at the expense of the smaller ones.”

The controversial president with a penchant for going through managers like a serial womanizer had a point. If the Italian league is going to reach its previous heights, maybe corruption and internal warfare is not what the game needs, irrespective of what similar conditions in the nations’ past produced. Orson Welles’ character Harry in the 1949 film may have had a point but it isn’t relevant for modern Italy and its football.

The decision later this week will be pivotal for the European game. And more importantly, more money will be pumped into the game. As if it needed it.