| Football Italia | |
|---|---|
| Format | Football |
| Starring | James Richardson (1992-2007) Mark Chapman (2007-2008) Laura Esposto (2007-2008) |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Channel 4 |
| Picture format | 4:3, 16:9 |
| Original run | 6 September 1992[1] – 2008 |
Football Italia is an Italian football programme in the United Kingdom, known as Football Italiano for its final season. The first broadcasting of the show was in 1992 on Channel 4, the show is centered around live coverage of Serie A football, the top flight in the Italian league system. James Richardson presented the show for a large part of its existence.
The first live match shown was between Sampdoria and Lazio, on 6 September 1992, it ended in a 3–3 draw and drew 3 million viewers. In August 2005 the programme moved to Bravo, where it showed one season and a half, before moving to Setanta Sports. Five owned the rights for the 2007/08 season:[2] 26 August 2007 was the exact return date of the show, and the show was broadcasted weekly from 1:30pm Sunday afternoon GMT.[3] The show's end was announced on 27 June 2008, on the Football Italiano website. The message, posted by James Sugure, read: "Unfortunately it is now unlikely that Five will be continuing their Football Italiano television coverage of Serie A for the 2008-09 season. As a result, this website will now be suspended until further notice. On behalf of all the team here at Football Italiano I would like thank you for your support over the last year."[4]
Contents |
Football Italia started as a result of three factors: Sky taking live English top-flight football off terrestrial television, the transfer of England's best player, Paul Gascoigne, to Lazio and the success of C4's Welsh brother S4C's European football programme, Sgorio, an idea C4 had passed on a few years earlier. There was a significant difference in quality between Italian and English football that had appeared after England's ban from European competition for unruly behaviour of its fans. Italian clubs paid much higher transfer fees than their English counterparts, and many of the world's best players played in Serie A.
British Satellite Broadcasting first brought live Italian football to a small number of British homes with squarials in 1990, when it showed live games on The Sports Channel. Soon, BSB was officially merged with (in reality taken over by) Sky, which showed Italian games in the early days of Sky Sports, but when the Premier League came into being, Sky now had live top-flight English football every week of the season, and dropped Serie A - which is where Channel 4 came in, partially inspired by a conversation with Paul Gascoigne who had regretted that most British viewers would not be able to see his club games.
In 1992 came the most seismic shift in the history of televised sport in Britain. The newly formed FA Premier League sold its live rights to Sky Sports with the BBC buying the highlights to herald the return of Match of the Day every Saturday night, while ITV claimed the lower divisions and the new Champions League. All of which meant a gap on Sunday afternoons for live football on terrestrial television. Chrysalis and Paul had done Gascoigne – The Fightback [a documentary about the player's return from injury] together. And Paul said that it was a shame that nobody would be able to see his games. So Chryalis asked the Italian Federation, who said that they couldn’t show just Lazio’s games, but they could cover the whole league if they put in a bid.[5] The network had only briefly shown football beforehand. Martin Tyler had reported on the 1983 Brazilian Cup Final, while in 1985, Channel 4 carried ITV’s live coverage of a World Cup qualifier between Australia and Scotland.
So, having paid £1.5m for the rights to Serie A, on 6 September 1992, C4 transmitted its first live Italian match – Sampdoria v Lazio. Gascoigne might have still been injured, but a healthy three million people still tuned in. Veteran broadcaster Kenneth Wolstenholme linked off screen, and Peter Brackley and Paul Elliott commentated.
In its original incarnation, Football Italia consisted of two programmes: Gazzetta, a Saturday-morning programme (voiced by Kenneth Wolstenholme), and a live match on Sunday afternoon (commentated by Peter Brackley). Gazzetta contained all the highlights of the previous week's matches and an instalment on Italian culture. The former would also consist of interviews with players, especially Gazza, often as they walked around a chosen city. These were often very funny, such as when Richardson performed the Lambada with Attilio Lombardo. One of the most famous aspects of the programme was Richardson's going through the Italian newspapers in the sunshine, outside a café, explaining the football news to the British audience. During the last series, which was broadcast in the early hours of the morning, Richardson sat at a café outside the Pantheon, usually in front of a large ice cream or dessert, and a proportion of each course would vanish between each set of match highlights.
For the 2000/2001 season the Sunday afternoon live games became more infrequent. The most telling sign came when Channel 4 abandoned coverage of the title decider in 2001 with seven minutes remaining, the match having been disrupted by a pitch invasion by the celebrating Roma fans. Just 12 months earlier Channel 4 had happily rearranged the schedules when Juventus’ title bid was held up by a rainstorm with Peter Brackley switching between matches. The following season live coverage was abandoned altogether.
After Channel 4 dropped Italian football; British Eurosport bought the Serie A rights from the middle of the 2002–03 season and held onto the rights until 2005.
Bravo and Setanta Sports signed a joint deal, taking them through to the end of the 2006–07 season.[6] Poor viewing figures on Bravo saw them announce they would not be showing any matches after 23 December 2006. Some speculate that this was because of the absence of the league's most decorated team, Juventus, who were relegated in the aftermath of the 2006 Serie A scandal.
Five gained the rights to broadcast Serie A from the 2007–08 season, giving them the rights to air highlights and live games.[7] It meant a return for the show to terrestrial television, where the live games were aired at the old 1:30p.m Sunday afternoon spot like it was originally.
Under the new name of Football Italiano the show was presented by Mark Chapman and Laura Esposto. The first game shown was a 1–1 draw between Inter Milan and Udinese on Sunday, 26 August 2007 with John Barnes and Tony Jones as the commentators.
The opening theme song in this version of the show was Phantom pt. II by Justice.
On 27 June 2008, it was reported on the Football Italiano site that it looked likely that Five would not be continuing with their television coverage of Serie A for the 2008-09 season. As a result the Football Italiano website was suspended.
Italian football was absent from British TV for the 2008-09 season, other than live coverage of the Milan derby on BBC Three. Since the 2009/10 season, coverage of Serie A has been on ESPN. They show three live games per week during the Serie A season.[8] ESPN do not however use the Football Italia title for their programmes.
At its peak in the 1990s, Football Italia attracted over 3 million viewers, and remains the most watched programme in the UK about a non-British domestic football league.[9] In particular, presenter James Richardson was popular for both his humour, and his ability to avoid many of the cliches of football presenting.[9] Since Football Italia launched, a number of other European domestic leagues have now been broadcast on British television. Ultimately, the series' popularity fell as Italian football slipped behind first Spanish and then English in the UEFA Coefficients and the perceived level of quality.[9] In particular, the end of the show coincided with the 2006 Italian football scandal, and a loss in reputation for Italian club football.
The show became well known in popular culture for a word it features at the start and at the end of each show. Commonly fans in the United Kingdom misinterpreted the word as "Goal Lazio"; the term is actually Golaccio! which translated roughly as "Goaltastic!".[10]
Although the word itself is not Italian, it does come from footballer José Altafini, a Brazilian who played in Serie A for AC Milan, Napoli and Juventus. Since retiring from the game, Altafini became a commentator in Italy and would use the word to describe a particularly beautiful goal. It is said to be his actual voice in the soundclip.[10] However, the fact that the -accio suffix in Italian actually represents a kind of negative alteration. seems to conflict with the sense of the Portuguese term golazo, meaning a great goal.
The theme tune to the show - which became a classic of its genre - later became a track called "I'm Stronger Now" (the theme was written first, the vocal version followed) which was performed by Definitive Two and released on the Deconstruction label in 1992. Four tracks were released together but it is the 7" Edit version that is closest to the theme tune. The track was written by Ben Chapman and Steve Duberry who adapted the track from the original theme tune, the most notable difference being the omission of the famous "Golaccio" chant which is probably what the show is best remembered for.
Click on the link below to hear it:
Football Italia has been shown on the following channels throughout its history:
Five: 2007–08
Bravo/Setanta Sports: 2005–06, 2006–07
British Eurosport: Midway through 2002–03, 2003–04, 2004–05
Channel 4: 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995–96, 1996–97, 1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–00, 2000–01, 2001–02
BSB/Sky: 1990-91, 1991-92
S4C: 1988-89, 1989-90