Italian manager assaults his own player during match

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An Italian football match last night saw incredible scenes unfold when the manager of one of the teams playing physically assaulted one of his players. The assault took place after the manager took the player off in order to substitute him and the event was captured on television.

The substitution came at half time when the manager Delio Rossi substituted Adem Ljajic. The player was obviously such a great fan of the decision and he proceeded to sarcastically clap the decision by his manager. Once that he was off, the manager pointed his finger at him and clearly began to verbally reprimand him.

However, this did not seem to be enough for the manager because after the player sat down in the dugout, the manager jumped into it and slapped him in the face. It then appeared as if he wa about to punch him but he was dragged away by other people in the dugout before anything could happen.

The president of the team made the instant decision to sack the manager and has commented, “I’m sad that I have to make this decision, it is clear that months of stress had been building up for the manager and they all came out of one moment. He has never acted in this way before and I’m just sad that I have to make the decision to fire him.

“That said, it is clear that this sort of action cannot go unpunished as there was no provocation strong enough to cause this kind of response.” The player is also going to face reprimand for his actions but they are unlikely to be as severe as those that have been facing the manager. It is currently unclear who will be taking over the management role at the club in the immediate future.

Italian Footballers paid much less than international stars in Serie A

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This week has seen the very unusual stop of Italian Serie A with Totti, Del Piero, Ibrahimovich, Milito & Co. striking for industrial relations issues linked to the agreement on the collective contract. The main cause sounds marginal to the public audience. However, professional footballers in Italy could have other reasons for striking, above all those holding an Italian passport.

According to a study from Antonio Giangreco and Johan Maes, researchers at IESEG School of Management, Italian players in the major “Serie A” league are significantly less paid than, alternatively, their European or non-European teammates. In fact, starting from secondary data of the four last football seasons, it was found that by average that Italian players earned about 1.00 million euros per year, which is .68 million euros less than other European players and .42 million euros less than non-European players contracted by an Italian football club.

This gap is particularly relevant for defenders and midfielders. In fact, in the season 2007-08, for example, Italian defenders earned “only” 0.53 million euros against 1.3 million made by the other European players and the 1.01 million euros of the non-European players. The statistics for defenders show a similar trend up to the last season with, however, a general decrease of between 10% and 15% for the non-Italian category. Wages for Italian midfielders present, over the same period, the same tendency with a gap even larger at the advantage of European midfielders: for example, 0.96 million euros for 2009-10, and of 0.5 million euros for 2010-11.

The segmentation of footballers according to their performance in four categories (lowest, second lowest, second best, best performers) confirmed the same conclusion for the first season. In fact, Italian players appear to be the least paid within the same category of performers if compared to other European players and non-European players contracted by an Italian football club. The discriminating effect against Italian players becomes milder to the extent that for the last season examined 2010-11, it is true only for top performers. A “cannoniere” is worth less than an international star.