A number of US investors are buying into Italian football clubs with the hopes that growth in TV rights and modernisation of ageing stadiums would revive the industry. Parma and Spezia became the most recent clubs to pass into the hands of north American owners. Nearly a quarter of Serie A team now have US ownership.

This weekend, two top flight derbies would be played between US-owned teams – Roma versus AC Milan and Spezia against Parma.

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Foreign investment has long been part of the English Premier League. Currently only four Premier League clubs are British-owned. But the phenomenon is more recent in Italy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also played a key role in Italian clubs opening up to foreign investors.

Roma’s US-era began a decade ago with James Pallotta, who sold on to another American businessman Dan Friedkin last summer.

Former European giants AC Milan are also flying the US flag since passing into the hands of the Elliott Management group in 2018 after the club’s Chinese owners defaulted on a debt to the hedge fund.

Fiorentina have been owned by Italian-born US businessman Rocco Commisso since 2019, while this season the Krause group became the the majority shareholder in Parma, and financier Robert Platek and his family purchased promoted Spezia in February.