The cold snap that has hit Italy in the past few days has exposed the myriad problems that Italian football is facing. With temperatures going down to record levels and heavy snow hitting the country, four top division matches had to be postponed this past week and it has since been decided that this weekend’s matches are all played in the afternoon. But it seems that the problems are likely to persist, as one match has already been postponed due to the inclement weather and it would not be surprising if others follow suit.

There are several issues here. First of all, the Italian Football League should refrain from scheduling matches in the evening during January and February, the coldest months of the year.

What is happening these days has happened before, so it is pointless programming matches on such cold nights when there are great risks that these will have to be called off because of the weather.

One can argue that there are limited days in which to cram a heavy season of football. There is one solution here – that the Italian league does not start in late August or early September, but should fall in line with the rest of Europe and start at least in mid-August. Italian authorities have resisted this because of the Ferragosto holidays but, frankly, if winter problems are to be resolved then there is no other option.

Of course, if the number of teams in the top league is reduced from 20 to 18 – and therefore trim down the number of league matches by four as has been advocated in several quarters – then the problem would be eliminated too.

The second and perhaps more serious issue is the quality of the football stadiums that exist in Italy and how they are managed. Most of them are too old and cannot be adapted to today’s needs. More than this, many do not belong to the clubs but are rented by the clubs from the city, and no club is ready to invest in a stadium when they do not own the stadium. The city, on the other hand, does not want to invest either.

So today’s stadiums in Italy are of much inferior quality to those in other countries, in particular Germany and England. There, many of the clubs own their stadiums and use them for marketing and promotional purposes to their own financial gain.

Italy has a lot to learn in this regard. But, as in other sectors, they find it hard to come to an agreement. In this case, it is football that suffers.