Some things from the weekend ~ 27-08-12

Milan began the 1992-93 season with 71,000 season ticket holders. 20 years later their unexpected opening day home defeat by Sampdoria was watched by 22,000 season ticket holders, the lowest figure since Silvio Berlusconi arrived in 1986, and 36,000 in all in the 80,000 capacity Giuseppe Meazza stadium. 20 years ago there were no live games on TV. Now every Serie A game is screened live, and often at highly inconvenient times. The result is there for all to see - swathes of empty seats at most grounds most weeks, with the incentive to go out and watch games live not helped by the extremely sick state of the Italian game at the moment.

Yep, you can see it happening here too when even the champions can't sell out their home games. Clubs are trying to squeeze the loyal fans but there is so much choice, especially after the Portsmouth pub landmark case, that people are preferring to watch their footy in more varied locations these days.

English stadiums are still a long, long way from being as empty as Italian ones, and I don't see the trend being reversed in the near future.

The 'highly inconvenient times' at which many games are played in Italy refers of course to those who want to be there. For the armchair viewer it's quite different.