The Serie A season reaches its climax at the weekend, but with Juventus already having secured the title and Napoli looking good for second, the real interest comes in the relegation battle, which on the face of it should be an enthralling fight. However, the league’s bizarre distribution of parachute payments threatens to make the final matches a farce.
The chief protagonists in this race are Palermo and Carpi, with the former sitting safe in 17th and one point clear of the latter, who are a place below ahead of the weekend’s games.
If Carpi better Palermo’s result at the weekend, it will see the Stadio Alberto Braglia outfit, who won the Serie B title last season, survive. It is a plausible scenario, but does not take into account a third factor: already-relegated Verona, who Palermo face on Sunday.
Verona have nothing to play for at the weekend. Even if they were to win their match, they would not move off bottom spot, and yet, even if they could, it would still be in their interests to lose the fixture due to the distribution of parachute payments in Serie A.
Palermo are a long-established force in Italy’s top flight, and if they were to be relegated, they would therefore take a greater share of the €60 million pot on offer to demoted clubs. As Carpi only won promotion last summer, their payment would be significantly lower.
The result of this is that Verona stand to gain €15m more should Carpi go down with them. Given that they have a direct influence in the relegation battle, all they need to do to secure this payment is lose away to Palermo at the weekend.
This additional €15m would only be paid out if Verona failed to win promotion next season, however.
With the Serie A TV deal for 2015-18 more lucrative than ever, it would certainly be in their thinking to win an immediate place back in the top flight, yet if Carpi were to go down with Verona it would provide them with some valuable insurance if they were to fail.
- Goal