Although he is still relatively young (he has just turned 52), over the past 25 years, few managers, particularly in Italy, have experienced the evolution and challenges of the football industry, and especially the business of football, as closely as Andrea Radrizzani. After starting his career alongside pioneers in the business of television rights, such as Rodolfo Hecht and Marco Bogarelli, Andrea moved to Asia just before that market was about to experience a major boom.There, together with his business partner Riccardo Silva, he founded MP & Silva, a company that within just a few years became a global powerhouse in the sale of sports broadcasting rights. Following the billion-dollar sale of the company to Chinese investors, Radrizzani became the owner of Leeds United, following the advice of Sir Kenny Dalglish. After approaching Antonio Conte and Claudio Ranieri, he chose Marcelo “El Loco” Bielsa as coach to bring the club back to the Premier League at Elland Road.After leaving the Yorkshire club, partly inspired by his relationship with Gianluca Vialli, he joined forces with Matteo Manfredi to save Sampdoria from bankruptcy. However, things did not work out in Genoa and he left the ownership of the Blucerchiati shortly afterwards, but not before introducing the new owner Joseph Tey to the club. Today Sampdoria remains very close to his heart.Calcio e Finanza interviewed Andrea in a wide-ranging exclusive interview covering various experiences and anecdotes from his time at Leeds United and Sampdoria, before exploring his future projects as a media entrepreneur through his companies Aser Ventures and Kai, as well as DAZN‘s plans, where he is a minority shareholder (3%) and a member of the global board of directors. Radrizzani also revealed exclusively to our publication a proposal of his own ahead of the tender for the renewal of Serie A’s domestic broadcasting rights for the 2029-2034 five-year period. The tender is now approaching, and the future of many Italian clubs depends on its outcome, given that television revenues remain the main source of income for Serie A teams.FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF TV RIGHTS TO THE SALE OF M&P SILVAQ. Mr Radrizzani, your career began in Lainate, on the outskirts of Milan, and many young people see you as a role model in the industry. How did you get started? How did you become a well-known entrepreneur with experience all over the world?A. It is a long story. I am getting older now. I graduated at the IULM University in Milan and my dream was to work in football, but I did not have any connections in that environment. People often get into this industry through recommendations or referrals. Unfortunately, I didn’t have those kinds of opportunities, but I strongly believed in myself. I remember attending a conference organised by Il Sole 24 Ore in 2000 for the launch of Stage Up (a company that has been involved in market research, communication and media relations for over 20 years, ed.). There were several speakers at that conference, including the chief executive of Manchester United, the chief executive of Inter and Rodolfo Hecht, who sadly is no longer with us. At the time, he was president of Media Partners, a sports rights agency founded on an idea he had developed with Marco Bogarelli, who also passed away prematurely.We are talking about managers with extraordinary vision. Just think that as early as 1994, they proposed creating the famous Super League to Europe’s biggest clubs.And then, following that project, which never came to life because UEFA restructured the Champions League, those gentlemen created Media Partners, an agency specialised in the distribution of sports rights. It initially focused mainly in skiing, with the FIS World Championships, alpine skiing and snowboarding, before expanding into basketball with the EuroLeague. Over time, that company became Infront Italy and served as an advisor to Serie A for many years.Q. Those were the early days of television rights.A. Yes, they were the early days. I approached Rodolfo pretending I knew him, although I did not have a clue who he was. He was very kind and arranged an interview with me and his team in Milan. Shortly afterwards, I started working there, because they were developing websites for football and basketball clubs. It was the first boom of the internet economy. I found my job and I remember I was working like crazy, doing everything from sales to working as a project manager.Then we started managing Serie A’s internet rights. At that time, they belonged to Sky, and I began distributing them abroad to sports and football websites in Japan and China. During one of those trips, I ended up in Shanghai. I remember attending a conference there with Milan and Inter for a few days, and I was blown away by the city’s industrial development. They were building skyscrapers at three in the morning, and I thought: “What we’re witnessing here is the Italian economic miracle multiplied by many times: I have to move here”. Six months later, I managed to convince everyone at the company to let me move to Shanghai.(Photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)Q. So you moved to China as a Media Partners executive.A. Yes, I went there in 2003. I was based in Shanghai, but I worked a lot with Japan, starting distributing digital rights. Today that distinction no longer exists because the media have converged. I began working extensively, including with Milan on summer camps (friendly matches, ed.) in China, and all sorts of other activities. After two years, I left the agency and moved to Tokyo on my own to work with the European football, including LaLiga, Premier League and Bundesliga and selling their digital rights.Q. What was the move to Japan like?A. At the end of 2004, I moved to Tokyo as a consultant for SoftBank, a giant in investment and telecommunications. I started helping them acquire Premier League, LaLiga and Bundesliga rights. Then, gradually, while working for those leagues, I began selling rights in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand and pretty much all of Southeast Asia. I was doing things I wouldn’t even know where to start describing them today, but my courage, my willingness and my ambition gave me the strength to keep going.Q. Was there a sense that the market was growing exponentially in those years?A. Absolutely. There’s an interesting anecdote about that period. I remember that Giuseppe Marotta, Sampdoria’s chief executive of the time, had acquired a Japanese player, Atsushi Yanagisawa. Marotta himself called me to assess the value of television rights in Japan. All of it feels like we’re talking about ancient times.Coming back to the broader picture, at a certain point something very important happened. My dream was to become, one day, the person in charge of distributing Serie A rights. My goal was to work for Serie A and Italian football. I was always passionate about football and wanted to understand the various markets and help them develop.Thanks to the good work I was doing, I attracted the attention of Rai Trade, which at that time distributed Serie A rights, together with another agency, Sportfive. They invited me to an interview in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and offered me exactly the job I had always wanted.But before accepting their offer, I returned to Italy and met Riccardo Silva, who had been my colleague at Media Partners. I told him: “Riccardo, I’ve got this opportunity, but if you want to do something in this industry as well, I’d rather worked with you”. Riccardo replied: “I have some money that I want to invest. Let’s do it”.So we started buying the rights of the teams promoted from Serie B to Serie A. At that time, these clubs included Messina and Lecce, among others. We also facilitated the arrival of Japanese players at those clubs, because I was still based in Japan and was selling the broadcasting rights to their matches there.Q. How did you divide responsibilities between you?A. Silva was very good at building relationships and acquired the worldwide rights of ten Italian clubs. I was in Asia and secured my most important contract, which also included major clubs, such as Milan, Juventus, Inter and Roma.That was the game changer for both of us because, at that point, we took control of the most important part of Serie A’s international distribution, at the expense of Rai and Sportfive. I then told Riccardo that, instead of paying me my share, we could use that money to create a new agency that I would manage from Singapore. That’s how MP & Silva was born.So you could say that my entrepreneurial journey really began in Singapore in 2007. From there, it was an incredible adventure, because in seven years we opened 21 offices around the world. That first year in Singapore, in particular, taught me a great deal, both personally and professionally.Q. MP & Silva then continued until 2014.A. Yes. By 2014, we had around 72 partnerships with rights holders (the owners of broadcasting rights, ed.), including leagues, federations and clubs, from Formula 1 to the Premier League, from Roland Garros to Major League Baseball (the professional baseball league in the United States, ed.), just to name a few.We were working with almost every major sports organisation, generating revenues of nearly $800 million. At that point, we were the third-largest sports rights agency in the world.Q. Where were you based? And why was it important to have offices all over the world?A. Between Singapore and London. Over time, we grew in terms of staff and structure. We had offices everywhere, from Vietnam to Miami and Tokyo. Having a local presence was extremely important.Being close to clients, broadcasters and media companies allowed us to adapt our strategies and, above all, acquire rights and establish partnerships with a clear understanding of how to take the most out of them. That’s why having a local presence mattered so much, and it wasn’t something that other agency paid attention to.Q. At a certain point, you received an extraordinary offer, is that right?A. Actually, as early as 2012, I wanted to create a fund that would invest in sports rights. Riccardo initially agreed and I found a fund, but then he changed his mind somehow. And from there we began to have different visions. I stepped away from the business, resigning as the group’s chief executive, and moved to New York to follow the world of Wall Street finance more closely and build relationships in that environment.I found partners who wanted to create a fund and brought them in to make an offer and acquire MP & Silva. We accepted, but the truth is that we weren’t prepared to sell a company, so the deal never closed. We then decided to approach the situation seriously and, with the help of professional advisors such as EY and UBS, we launched a bidding process.We went to market and received 13 offers, entering negotiations with four parties. They were mainly Chinese funds, including one involving Suning, which at the time owned Inter, as well as a European private equity firm.Q. At that point, if I remember correctly, you managed to sell the company to a Chinese buyer for a substantial amount?A. Yes, we sold it for an enterprise value of more than $1 billion to a Chinese governmental-backed fund in partnership with another company. It was a financially rewarding decision, but unfortunately, it was the wrong one. We chose the highest price, but the partner was not the right one.I was already effectively out of the company. Riccardo was more involved, but he was also unhappy with the decision made by the Chinese shareholders and the way they operated. They were short-sighted and didn’t understand the business.Q. What were the main problems?A. We hadn’t realised that their interest was more speculative than industrial, because it was a publicly listed company. That brought the business to a standstill, and within a short time it went into a nosedive.It was a company that had been performing extremely well and had reached a point where it needed to evolve. It should have used its strength to offer many more services and build even stronger relationships with its partners. Instead, it missed that opportunity. The new ownership drove us into ruin.Q. Beyond the initial proceeds from the sale, did you lose money as entrepreneurs?A. Unfortunately, we left 35% in the company. If we had sold to someone else, the business would probably still be alive today, and perhaps even bigger. We suffered a significant financial loss.THE LEEDS UNITED JOURNEY: FROM BIELSA TO THE SALE TO THE 49ERSQ. You then became a football club owner, and one of your first investments was Leeds United in England.A. I’ve always followed my passions. Looking back today, I think I made some mistakes, partly because I probably wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have a financial education and background and wasn’t ready to manage such a significant business.Everything I did, I did with my heart. So I invested everything at once in media and sport. Perhaps today I would make just one investment, pursue other more conservative investments, and leave the second major investment until later.(Foto: Michael Steele/Getty Images)I’m a bit crazy (laughs, ed.). In a single summer, with my wife pregnant, I launched a media company in three different countries – Eleven Sports – and bought a football club.It was still a fantastic period. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the people around me. I should have been surrounded by with fewer “yes-men” and more people who might eventually have been able to stop my excessive ambition.Q. But Leeds is one of England’s historic clubs, with an incredibly passionate fan base, even though it was in the Championship at the time, correct?A. That’s a bit like the story of my life. I always make difficult choices. I like challenges. The first time I felt an interest in Leeds, I was having lunch with Kenny Dalglish (an absolute legend of the Scottish national team and of Liverpool, to the point that one of the main stands at Anfield Road is now named after the former Glasgow-born player and manager, ed.). Sir Kenny was telling me about this “sleeping giant”, Leeds United.So I started studying the club and discovered that Leeds United had once been the sixth-biggest club in the world. They had reached a semi-final at Champions League (against Valencia, ed.), beaten Milan and had great players, such as Eric Cantona, Rio Ferdinand and many others.I then called Massimo Cellino (the owner of the English club at the time, ed.) and pretended to be an agent for another investor, just to test the ground. But during our second phone call, I told him I was personally interested, and he replied: “Let’s do this together”.We worked together for six months, with an agreement that if Leeds failed the promotion, I would have the option to buy the other half of the club. And that’s exactly what happened.Q. How did it go?A. It took me three years to achieve promotion to the Premier League. Leeds was a significant investment, by the way. We invested £45 million to buy the club, £20 million to buy the stadium, and our net spending to achieve promotion was £27 million, which is incredibly low with no comparable cases.Q. And as if that weren’t enough, you appointed the Argentine guru Marcelo “El Loco” Bielsa as manager.A. Yes, and that was a fantastic intuition. I remember that summer because, after a year in the Championship, I realised that the technical level of the teams in those divisions, much like Serie B in Italy, is very similar. The real difference is made by the manager: I decided I wanted a top one.I remember that during a dinner, even though I already knew the answer, I tried saying to Antonio Conte: “I’ll offer you £20 million. Get me into the Premier League”. Obviously, expecting him to leave Chelsea for Leeds was asking too much.Then I met Claudio Ranieri and other managers, until my sporting director told me: “Look, there’s one name, but I don’t know whether he’d come. Marcelo Bielsa”. I had someone calling him and by the following day he already knew all the names of every single player.We went to meet him in Buenos Aires, because someone like Bielsa needs to feel important. He surprised me because he had gathered a team of colleagues and, using Google Earth, had already worked out how he wanted to redesign the entire training ground.Q. What’s it like working with Bielsa?A. He’s a fantastic kind of a type. Certainly not an easy person, and working with him over the long term can be quite difficult, but he brings to the table a work ethic and culture that can change the players’ mentality. And that is exactly what we needed.(Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)Q. How long did you stay in the Premier League?A. We stayed in the Premier League for three years, and at a certain point an opportunity turned into a problem. I already had partners involved in the club, a consortium led by the San Francisco 49ers, the American NFL franchise.They had an option to acquire the club the following year at a valuation of around £500 million. But they contacted me and asked whether we could bring the transaction ahead.I had already spent two years working on investing in other countries and creating a multi-club ownership structure, so I was ready to change direction and sell, particularly because the amount involved was a significant one.Q. So what did you do?A. I agreed to sell, but I made the mistake I’d always advised others not to make: selling halfway through a season. Rumours about the sale began to spread, internally included.But the team was not performing well. Previously, if I had decided to change the manager, everyone would have followed my lead. In that situation, however, the partner who was about to buy the club chose to trust the management.That created a disaster for the club, because we slipped down the league table, and I could no longer attract strong and experienced managers such as Unai Emery or Julen Lopetegui, who would have been the ideal solutions to get us out of trouble.On top of that, I was in a difficult position, distant from the club being based in Italy, while the management had sided with the incoming buyer. It was an extremely delicate and difficult situation, one that I also found myself in because of my own management mistakes.Q. Why were you in Italy at such a difficult time?A. I was in Milan partially for personal reasons, and I found myself alone. Unfortunately, we were relegated to the Championship, and that is when I made an even bigger mistake: I sold the club. But at that moment, I was under no obligation to sell. I could have kept it. I should have kept it. Never sell when you’re at your lowest point.Q. Was the club’s financial situation stable?A. Yes, absolutely. All we had to do was what the new owners eventually did: sell players. We had players like Rutter, Summerville and Adams. They sold players for £200 million. I could have done exactly the same thing and getting the promotion afterwards.But personally, I was devastated. Football gives you so much, but it also drains you so much. I was in a situation where I made the right decision for my health, but the wrong one for the business.Q. Looking back, how do you assess your experience at Leeds?A. I had five and a half wonderful years, with incredible results. I took the club from £30 million in revenue to around £55 million in the Championship and £190 million (almost €230 million, ed.) in the Premier League. That year, our revenues were similar to AC Milan’s.I transformed the club, upgraded its infrastructure and put it back on the football world map, doing an extraordinary job of transformation. Then I made mistakes in the final six months. And I paid a heavy price for those mistakes because we’d done all that work to achieve a very significant “exit”.THE SAMPDORIA VENTURE: A CHANCE FOR REDEMPTION, FROM MANFREDI TO TEYQ. At that point, you sold Leeds and returned to Italy.A. Yes, the two things happened at the same time. As I was preparing to leave Leeds, I was presented with a fantastic opportunity from both an entrepreneurial and sporting perspective: Sampdoria. Let’s say I accepted it for two reasons.The first was an instinctive desire for redemption. Sometimes you make decisions based on emotions. I wanted to repeat what I had done at Leeds and saw it as an opportunity at a time when I felt defeated.The second reason was that I had vivid memories of Gianluca Vialli, that I had the pleasure and honor of knowing and meeting in London for years. I knew how hard he had worked to find investors to save the club from the previous ownership (Massimo Ferrero, ed.).He genuinely wanted to restore the club’s finances, relaunch it and bring it back to where it belonged. He wanted to become the president of a new Sampdoria. Putting those two things together, I said to myself: “OK, I’ll do it. I’ll take the challenge”.And I didn’t do it alone, but together with Matteo Manfredi. The idea was to gather other partners, and we started discussions with Qatar Sports Investments and other funds.Q. What went wrong in Genoa?A. We effectively saved Sampdoria from bankruptcy. Personally, I put in €6 million. The problem was that, at the time, it was difficult to understand exactly how much financing the club needed.It was a race against time, because the debt structure involving the institutions wasn’t helping, and we had no relationship with the selling party, given that there was a gentleman with a very difficult and problematic situation behind him.In that context, I had to give credit to Matteo Manfredi for doing an extraordinary job of reaching an agreement with the various parties.I have never dealt with this kind of bureaucratic activities, which are extremely complicated in Italy. He was the one who technically managed to save the club from bankruptcy. In terms of managing the club, I was looking for more significant financial partners.As I mentioned earlier, I opened discussions with Qatar Sports Investments. They were very interested, but the government of the Gulf country couldn’t invest in a project where the precise financial figures were unknown, so nothing came out of it.We then found an investor through a contact of mine in Singapore: Joseph Tey, someone I didn’t know at that time. A colleague made the introduction, and he accepted to get involved.Q. So you deny the rumours that Tey was closely connected to you? Was he just an acquaintance?A. Joseph Tey had invested in a company belonging to a former colleague of mine, a manager who used to work for me in Singapore.When he read that I was involved with Sampdoria, he expressed interest in the project. That’s how I met him for the first time.Q. You were recently spotted at Marassi. So the connection, at least emotionally, is still there?A. I have to say that I’ve built a good relationship with Tey, and I have enormous respect for what he’s doing for Sampdoria in terms of investment.Unfortunately, things aren’t going well in terms of sporting results, but that’s another matter. From an investment perspective, however, he’s spent a great deal trying to put the club back on track. So, as a sort of Sampdoria supporter, I am grateful for what he has done.Q. Why did you decide to leave Sampdoria almost immediately, given that you still feel connected to the club?A. For two reasons. The first was personal. I realised that, first of all, I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do or what I’d managed to do in other situations. Also because I wasn’t the same person. I wasn’t well after what had happened to me in the previous months.I was doing it more for other people than for myself. I realised all of this and said: “This isn’t the right thing”. I was not spending enough time with my son and my family, and I didn’t want to do that after six years of travelling around England on so many weekends away from home.Q. And the second reason?A. The second is that doing things jointly with someone else doesn’t suit me. Democracy doesn’t work in business. You need clear leadership. So rather than damage a good relationship with Manfredi, I preferred to take a step back, and I left completely after three months.Then Joseph Tey came in and made a major financial commitment. I hope he succeeds and manages to bring Sampdoria back to where it belongs.Q. What memories do you have of your time with the Blucerchiati?A. The strange thing is that I’m almost more in love with Sampdoria today than I was when I was working there.The affection of Sampdoria’s fans has stayed with me, and when I go to the stadium, I do it because I genuinely want to see the Curva, the colours. Maybe one day I’ll sneak in among the supporters (laughs, ed.).What Sampdoria represents to me today is still very powerful, even though I didn’t do anything particularly special for the club. I hope that one day I’ll have the opportunity to give something back because it’s an incredible, special club, and it deserves the very best. It deserves entrepreneurs and managers who can bring it back to Serie A.Q. Have you formed an opinion on why Tey hasn’t yet managed to turn things around on the pitch?A. In the first year, we conducted our transfer business with two people and an extremely limited budget.There was Nicola Legrottaglie, who was responsible for performance, and Andrea Mancini (son of Roberto Mancini, the current coach of the Italian national team, ed.), who helped me with transfers.I believe it was the right decision, because the club had no budget. So we had to focus on young players who might make mistakes, but could have learnt over time to develop a connection with the club from the very beginning, based on passion and loyalty.What I would have liked to defend – but wasn’t able to do – was the separation of responsibilities: one person looks after what happens on the pitch, the coach, while the other handles the negotiations of the athletes.It was a somewhat innovative approach in Italy, without the traditional sporting director responsible for everything. That was my choice because I believe these are two completely different jobs, with different objectives.And I would have liked that approach to be supported, because I believe the results would eventually have come.I should also point out that we finished with a positive balance of €5 million, meaning we generated money rather than spending it, and brought in some very interesting young players.Among them were Sebastiano Esposito, who joined the national team, Daniele Ghilardi, now at Roma, and Facundo González from Juventus.Q. How did that season go from a sporting perspective?A. We achieved the fifth position that year, but as the saying goes: “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Football clubs are built over time, with consistency and continuity in decision-making.(Photo: Simone Arveda/Getty Images)In this respect, for example, the current President of Napoli Aurelio De Laurentiis is the best one. He brought his experience from cinema to football, taking decisions but also relying on high-level executives.Going back to Sampdoria at that time, we needed to try to keep those young players. We had Filip Stankovic as doorman (now at Venezia, ed.), a young and extremely talented player. We had lots of strong young players at their very first experience.We could have helped them develop and adding a few more. Perhaps the following year we would have found ourselves in a better position and by the third season we could have achieved the promotion. Just as we did at Leeds, you need consistency and continuity. Unfortunately, everything was completely changed in the second year, but I was no longer there, and it wasn’t my decision.NEW PROJECTS WITH KAI, WORKING WITH DAZN AND A PROPOSAL FOR SERIE AQ. You have now returned to being an entrepreneur in the sports business and, among other things, you are also a minority shareholder in DAZN. What are your plans for the future?A. We’ve talked a lot about football, but I also love the media industry. We have several projects. First of all, I’m a member of DAZN’s global board of directors and, from time to time, I help when there are projects involving the management team. DAZN is going through an extremely important and very positive phase. The company is growing and has more than $6 billion revenues.Let’s say that, apart from Italy, where we’re still a little behind in terms of economic performance, we’re doing very well in the rest of the world, and I hope we can grow in that direction in my own country, too. I’m very happy with DAZN. The management team is very disciplined and continues to grow. And then I’m having fun with a new project called Kai.Q. Tell us about it.A. Kai is a media, marketing, content and talent agency based between Milan, London and Stockholm. It was created with the aim of helping brands generate value by building cultural relevance through authentic connections with different audiences.Kai aims to serve brands willing to enter the worlds of sport, music and entertainment. Our activities span from selling sponsorships and media advertising to providing services such as event creation and hospitality, as well as producing content for different platforms, all within an integrated communication strategy. We describe ourselves as a “one-stop shop”: you come to us and we’ll provide whatever you need.We offer a wide range of services for brands and rights owners, including leagues, federations and clubs, across different sports. We work in padel and Formula E, we’re developing a boxing project on a global scale, and we’re also active in music. We’ve done and are continuing to do so many brilliant activities.Q. In light of all your experience, how do you see the upcoming Serie A broadcasting rights tender for the 2029-2034 five-year period? There is talk of prices falling, which is causing considerable concern among Italian clubs.A. Prices are determined by the market, unless there’s an extremely competitive environment, which does not exist. In fact, it barely exists anywhere in the world. Perhaps the only exception is the United States, where there’s a reasonable degree of competition between legacy media giants such as ESPN or Disney and newer players such as Amazon, Apple and others.In that context, we’ve seen significant fragmentation of sports rights in the United States. In Europe, however, that level of competition doesn’t exist, and even when it did in the past, it caused a lot of damage. Many companies lost huge amounts of money, buying increasingly expensive rights, so the market has gone through adjustments. Today, there are two platforms operating in Italy: Sky and DAZN.Sky is doing very well with the Champions League and tennis, while DAZN is the leader in Serie A. I don’t see a competitive situation, unless new players come in and make a change.Q. In this scenario, what do you think Lega Serie A should do?A. The League needs to understand the reality of the market to avoid a dramatic situation like the one in France (with the failure of the Mediapro project, ed.). So it needs to protect itself while also being realistic. In particular, I don’t think that if the League created its own channel today, it would attract more than DAZN’s two million customers.At the same time, I don’t think we’re stupid at DAZN, investing hundreds of millions in a platform, taking on all the associated risks, and then only managing to add a few thousand customers every year. By now, that’s the core base of paying football fans. So, to grow, we need to innovate with new services for the higher-spending segment of the customer base, those who are willing and able to spend more.I’m talking about a community with the spending power to pay as much as €100 a month, provided they’re offered completely exclusive and innovative access, chats with players, just to give a few possible examples. More specifically, the top end of the customer pyramid can spend even more, while those in the lower and middle segments aren’t interested enough to spend that much. So we need to bring them in through different packages or pay-per-match options.Q. And we shouldn’t forget that television rights are the main source of revenue for our clubs.A. Yes. I think we need to find a medium- to long-term solution with an industrial partner, such as DAZN itself. A platform like DAZN and Serie A should create a joint venture and work together for 10 to 15 years to generate value.That means doing marketing together, looking after the editorial side, and developing relationships with content creators and influencers. Because today the world is no longer focused on just one medium, television.We need to create an integrated approach between the parties that also leads to increased revenues coming from content. Serie A’s business is football, DAZN’s business is media. We need to create a joint venture with that precise objective, but with a much longer time horizon.Because if the timeframe is three or five years, and the only goal is to buy the rights and sell them to consumers, I don’t think you create value.Q. Will you propose this model?A. I think it’s the only way. The problem is that the Presidents of clubs also need to change their approach. Perhaps you lose 3% or 5% today, but you invest in creating value through a company with an industrial partner.Q. In this respect, could the fact that there are now many American owners in Serie A help?A. Yes, absolutely. The American owners I see in Italy understand business, media and the importance of planning and taking an industrial approach.If DAZN created a joint venture with Serie A, there would be benefits not only in the domestic market over time, but also internationally, where Serie A isn’t performing well.Let me give you a very simple example: if you’re Italian and you’re abroad today, you can’t watch Serie A in Italian in most parts of the world, except illegally. So if there are American owners who can help us in this respect, they’re more than welcome.Q. Beyond investments and entrepreneurial projects, there is also a strong commitment to social initiatives through Play for Change. What are the objectives of the initiative, and what results have you achieved so far?A. Play for Change was born out of the belief that sport can be an extraordinary tool for social inclusion, education and personal growth. Since 2013, we’ve carried out more than 12 projects in Italy and around the world, reaching over 15,000 children, young people and families.We’ve established community sports centres in seven Italian cities and developed initiatives in Nepal, Bali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cameroon.Play for ChangeIn recent years, we’ve also focused on women’s football, thanks to the support of partners such as Mastercard, the UEFA Foundation for Children and the New Balance Foundation. Today, we work with more than ten sports associations across four Italian cities, with over 600 girls regularly participating in our activities.Another important project is in Cameroon, where we’ve launched a football academy for vulnerable young people, partly thanks to a donation of sports equipment from Sampdoria.Today, more than 160 young people take part in sports and educational activities, and some of them have had the opportunity to attend trials for the national Under-16 team.Our ambition is to expand this network further by involving companies and partners from the sports, music and entertainment industries. We believe that bringing together resources, expertise and relationships can generate a tangible and lasting social impact. Our goal is to turn a passion for sport into real opportunities for the next generation.