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TURIn. — Thousands of frustrated Juventus supporters have scrapped their TV sport subscriptions in protest against their Italian Serie A football club’s 15-point deduction.
The Italian giants were docked 15 points by an Italian court after an investigation into their transfer dealings, which also saw Tottenham chief Fabio Paratici handed a two-and-a-half-year ban for his role.
And in response, a large number of angry fans are halting their Sky and DAZN subscriptions in protest against the decision – a stunt which could cost broadcasters around £136million in turnover if the number of cancellations reaches 500 000.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office made the sensational call to dock Juve 15 points, handing out fines only to the other clubs involved.
Sole24Ore add that circa £275-a-year is obtained from an average single subscriber across the course of the season, meaning with 500 000 cancellations, the TV companies would lose around £136m.
With the latest Italian Football Federation report from 2020-21 indicating 47 per cent of broadcasters’ total revenue comes from those subscriptions, fans abandoning them in droves would be a short-circuit for the entire Serie A system.
A StageUp and Ipsos survey states Juve fans have by far the most season tickets in Italy, almost three times as many as Inter Milan.
It is expected there will be more cancellations to come amid continuing protest on social media, with the hashtags #DisdettaDAZN and #DisdettaSky (disdetta meaning cancel) trending on Twitter and receiving more than 11 000 tweets in a few hours.
Corriere del Mezzogiorno report that in the region of Puglia, largely made up on Juve fans, there have been 13 000 cancellations in just 24 hours, a practice which could become the default stance across southern Italy.
Juventus is the most-supported team in Italy, with more than 8.73m fans out of around 14m in total.
Losing a significant chunk of this audience could mean streaming giant DAZN — which has 2m subscribers in Italy and show every single Serie A match — will see their coffers collapse. — Mailonline.
Online Reporter