Italy will not participate in the World Cup for the third consecutive time, the fifth in its history. After the debacles against Sweden in 2018 and North Macedonia in 2022, the national team led by Rino Gattuso stopped in the play-off final of the UEFA qualifiers against Bosnia on penalties. A failure which includes our entire football system and which has opened a huge chasm within the FIGC, with the president resigning Gabriele Gravina (there will be elections on June 22nd) who appeared in front of the cameras at a press conference a few minutes after his defeat. Among the passages that have caused the most discussion is his response to a journalist’s question “Why does Italy win in all other sports but not in football?”. A theme that we try to analyze with the official Sports and Health data, the algorithmic model of contributions (MaC) and the sporting results of recent years.
“Amateur sports”: the dichotomy between legal definition and results
“Football is a professional sport, the others are amateur sports and we must make relationships on the basis of equity. Because in amateur sports you can adopt a whole series of choices that cannot be implemented in professional sports. I am also referring to the use of many young people within the Under, within their own tournaments. Not to mention state sports, such as skiing, except Arianna Fontana, all the others are employees of our State” (Gabriele Gravina).
With this response, the No. 1 of Italian football infuriated the world of Italian sport, probably referring to the difficulties of bringing together large economic interests within an often disunited Football League. From Gianmarco Tamberi to Gregorio Paltrinieri, from Francesca Lollobrigida to Pietro Sighel up to Mattia Furlani, to name just a few athletes, they have expressed their indignation via social media.
Analyzing the declaration from a purely regulatory point of view, Gravina refers to the regulatory difference between professional and amateur sports: in Italy, CONI (the Italian National Olympic Committee) recognizes 50 sports federations. Of these, only six they got the recognition of the professional sector pursuant to law no. 91 of 1981 and they are football, basketball, cycling, boxing, golf and motorcycling. All the others are formally classified as amateur. The distinction concerns the nature of the sports employment relationship: in amateur sport the athlete does not receive a salary for competitive activity, although he may receive expense reimbursements. In the professional one, however, the relationship is regulated by a subordinate employment contract in all respects.
However, if we shift attention from bureaucratic issues to actual numbersthe picture becomes more interesting. Putting aside for a moment the belonging of many champions to the sports groups of the Armed Forces and Police, the data shows that in recent years we have witnessed unprecedented structural growth on the part of the other Federations (above all tennis, volleyball, swimming, athletics and winter sports).
Then there is another crucial element to put on the table: the distribution of public funds. Analyzing the balance sheet, a notable disproportion in favor of football emerges. In 2026 the Coni has destined 569 million of investments in Italian sport, of which 344 distributed among the federations. There FIGC he received about 35.8 millionalmost the double of the second federation in the ranking (in the table we analyze the first 6), that of I swim.
The distribution of contributions takes place through the MaC (Algorithmic model of contributions), the tool adopted by Sport and Health to guarantee transparency and efficiency in allocation. The system is based on three pillars: crevival of the sports movement (number of members, affiliated companies and technicians), the sporting merit (results, media relevance and value of the disciplines, Olympic and otherwise) and the ability to manage public resourcesalso assessed according to ESG criteria of environmental, social and governance sustainability.
Tennis, volleyball, swimming, athletics, winter sports: “minor” but virtuous sports
While football is sinking, in recent years the “other” sports (so-called “minor” in Italy), above all tennis, volleyball, swimming, athletics and winter sports, thanks to programming, training of young people And talent they achieved results far beyond expectations (see, for example, the medal records in the last two editions of the Olympics, summer in Paris and winter in Milan-Cortina). The Italtennis and Italvolley systems represent virtuous examples, from which football in crisis could take inspiration.
In 2025 the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation registered for the first time the higher revenues among all the Federations, including football. Among the protagonists there is obviously the world number 2 Jannik Sinnerbut we can boast three other Italians in the global top 20 (Musetti, Cobolli and Darderi). Looking more specifically at the numbers, Fitp closed the last financial year with a production value higher than 230 million euros – the FIGC stopped just beyond 200 million. To the extraordinary results (Slam, Davis Cup, Billie Jean King Cup) are added the first-rate events on Italian soil, resulting from the virtuous model of Angelo Binaghi and the great work of diplomacy and sponsorships: in addition to the Italian Internazionali, from 2021 the calendar has been further enriched with the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin and from 2025 with the Davis Cup Final 8 in Bologna (which had already hosted the group stage) as well as a twenty Challenger tournaments scattered across the Peninsula which represent over 70% of the federal turnover, equal to approximately 157 million euros. The last decade also shows a change in status on the social plan: Tennis was once seen as an elitist, expensive sport, far from the middle class. Today the numbers tell a story substantial equality between Italian football and tennis members (for the record, starting from 2022 the FITP has progressively also included padel members).
And what about volleyball? Both the men’s and women’s national teams triumphed in their respective world championships in the Philippines and Thailand. A back to back succeeded only by the USSR in history. The boys coached by Fefè De Giorgi and the girls led by Julio Velasco (who also won gold at the Paris Olympics) are the flagships of a movement that makes capillarity its strong point: according to CONI data from 2023, volleyball is the second sport after football in terms of number of affiliated sports clubs in the area. In support of these there are 21 Regional Committees and 65 Territorial Committees, for a total of 86 units active in every corner of the country. Amateurs yes, but only and exclusively on paper.
