From the excellent results achieved in the first 11 months of the partnership to prospects for 2024, the valuation of the brand of the National Teams and the great satisfaction of qualifying for the European Championships. These were the themes that were discussed at the ‘Adidas-FIGC: a new era’ panel, which took place this morning at the Social Football Summit, featuring Federal Vice-Secretary Giovanni Valentini and the Senior Brand Director of Adidas, Irene Larcher. 

“It’s been an exciting year,” said Valentini in response to Pierluigi Pardo’s questions, “in terms of numbers, activities undertaken and the passion that Adidas has shown us. We are among the top five federations in the world for turnover and we needed an international brand like Adidas as a partner to help us push the product off the pitch as well.” Larcher continued, “Over these months, Adidas wanted to tell the Azzurri story with initiatives at the match venues, like the shirts hung up in the neighbourhoods of Napoli or the national anthem performed by an orchestra in the Piazza San Babila in Milan. The National Team is a symbol of the country and it is the most celebrated team in Italy: we are ready to build a great future together.” 

But whilst the ‘new era,’ which began in January, has already yielded significant results in commercial terms, it’s already time for the FIGC-Adidas partnership to look to 2024: “Together,” continued Valentini, “we have conquered new markets, increased sales by 30% and given fans experiences outside of the game. Now we are ready to plan for the future, we don’t want to stop here.” And, in fact, after releasing the 125 years of the FIGC commemorative kit, which sold out in mere minutes, 2024 will start again in March with the introduction of new shirts, which will be worn by the Azzurri at EURO 2024. As part of the partnership, talks have also begun about possibly organising some very prestigious friendly matches. 

 

THE ‘BEST MATCH EXPERIENCE’ AWARD TO THE FIGC - The FIGC was a big hit at the Football Summit Awards, the gala evening on Tuesday evening, organised to celebrate excellence in the world of football. The award for the ‘best match experience’ was presented to the FIGC for the light show at the Stadio ‘San Paolo’ in Napoli before Italy vs. England. 

During the match played in March 2023, the FIGC debuted the pre-match show that now accompanies Azzurri matches, making the event unique both for those who follow it live, and for those who follow it from home, on different platforms, not only on TV, but also social media. At the San Paolo, a technological spectacle was staged on an LED carpet (9 km) on which multimedia content was shown, together with laser projections on the pitch and videos on the big screen, all accompanied by the notes of the new brand theme of the Italian national football teams. A show that thrilled the audience, moving everyone with the images and graphics in memory of Gianluca Vialli.

This type of show tries on the one hand to create an engaging atmosphere as part of the FIGC’s fan engagement strategy and on the other, to strengthen the passion of Azzurri fans, improving the emotional impact of the sporting event on them.