Udinese Owner Giampaolo Pozzo On How An Underdog Club Competes In Serie A

“It’s a long story,” Giampaolo Pozzo says as he recalls why he decided to buy the Italian soccer club Udinese Calcio 36 years ago.

Pozzo’s story is longer than most in elite soccer. Aged 81, he is the longest-serving president of a club in Europe’s Big Five leagues.

Under his watch, Udinese, from the northern Italian city of Udine (population 100,000), has become one of European soccer’s overachievers.

The club has played in Serie A, Italian soccer’s top division, for 28 consecutive seasons. It has qualified for European competition 11 times. And, equally as impressive in an industry where it is easy to lose money, it breaks even or makes small profits.

Pozzo was a driver of Udinese’s extensive international scouting network that has found numerous undervalued players to develop and later sell for a profit. He was also a pioneer of the increasingly-popular multi-club ownership strategy.

The story starts, though, with a boy watching his local club.

Searching the world for players

Pozzo was a “great fan” of Udinese since childhood, he tells me in an exclusive interview. He remembers standing on the terraces watching the team in Serie C, the third tier of Italian soccer.

Pozzo went into the family toolmaking business, Freud, which was started by his grandfather. He developed the company before selling to German multinational Bosch in 2008.

When Udinese, which celebrated its 125^th anniversary last year, ran into financial difficulties, Pozzo and some other businessmen bought it in 1986. He later became sole owner.

Early on, the goal was to scour the world for players with potential to nurture then sell to help balance the books.

“The goal of Udinese has always been, and will always be, to discover great talents,” Pozzo says.

“This is fundamental to have a sustainable club.”

The list of talents acquired cheaply and sold for profit is long. It gets longer nearly every transfer window.

In the past five seasons, Udinese has received €235.5 million ($227.1m) in transfer fees, according to Transfermarkt.

Recent examples include Rodrigo de Paul, who joined Atletico Madrid for a fee of €35 million in July, 2021. Udinese had bought him for €10 million. Twelve months later, Atletico came back with €20 million for Nahuel Molina. Udinese had picked him up on a free transfer.

Among the many examples over the years, a standout is Alexis Sánchez. Udinese scouts spotted the Chilean attacker as a 16-year-old playing in his home country. In 2006, he was signed for €3.5 million but twice sent on loan before arriving in Udine. After three seasons, he was sold to FC Barcelona for a fee reportedly worth ten times what Udinese paid.

Pozzo says Udinese began to “invest a lot” in its scouting network in the early 1990s, casting a net far and wide for players. While many clubs were still relying on contacts in their local areas, Pozzo built a room where his scouts could watch videotapes of matches from all over the world.

Today, scouts have more sophisticated tools. There is also more competition from clubs who have “copied” the Udinese model. But the continued conveyor belt of talent arriving at Udinese – and recent sales – means it is still possible to unearth diamonds, Pozzo says.

“Now the landscape has changed because there are platforms like Wyscout and also maybe the richest clubs can quickly see a player and offer more money to get the player,” he says.

“But it is fundamental to still have a great scouting department. You can’t just look at a player on video. You need to be able to understand the potential of the player. Our scouting department is one of the best in the world.”

Multi-club ownership pioneer

Pozzo was one of the first owners to pursue a multi-club model. In 2009, he bought Spanish club Granada CF and, in 2012, English team Watford.

Granada, which went from the third division to La Liga, where it stayed for five consecutive seasons, was sold in 2016. Watford, which reached the Premier League and an FA Cup final during Pozzo’s tenure, is now owned by his son, Gino.

Pozzo talks of the “positive synergy” that was created between the clubs, especially in areas like player trading and sharing technical skills. At one point, Granada had 14 players on loan from Udinese.

While multi-club models have attracted controversy, in particular the criticism that the smaller clubs in the group become “feeders” to the bigger ones, it is a strategy that is growing in popularity.

“I was one of the first to own more clubs but we see this phenomenon is increasing and it could be a new direction for football,” Pozzo says.

Research released last year found 156 clubs were part of 60 multi-club ownership groups worldwide, where owners or significant shareholders have stakes in two or more teams. Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly recently revealed intentions to build a multi-club network, mentioning Portugal and Belgium as possible destinations to acquire teams.

The move to international owners in Serie A

Another transition Pozzo has seen is in Italian soccer. Where once most clubs were owned by local businessmen and families, half of Serie A’s 20 clubs are now majority-owned by international investors. North American investors or groups own nine clubs.

Pozzo says he has not had offers to buy Udinese and suggests he is not interested in receiving any.

“It’s (international owners) a positive because it has helped to increase interest in Italian football. Like, for example, the last decade in the Premier League where investors have come in from Arabic countries and the US to invest in English football,” Pozzo says.

“That can raise new experiences and maybe new ideas in Italian football.”

The late 1980s and 1990s was a golden age for Italian soccer. Its clubs attracted the world’s best players and dominated European competition. Today, however, it is the fourth highest-revenue-generating domestic competition, behind the Premier League, La Liga and German Bundesliga.

There has been talk of following La Liga and France’s Ligue 1 in signing a deal with private equity to unlock more money for clubs.

Pozzo is cautiously optimistic and says Italian teams must make new investments, including in stadia. Udinese’s Dacia Arena stadium was extensively renovated and reopened in 2016.

“For sure Italy is now in a difficult period. Across the last 10 years we have had a gap to the Premier League or La Liga,” Pozzo says.

“But now, thanks also to our tradition and new ideas and investors, we are starting to work to close this gap.

“Private equity could represent an occasion to bring new capital into the league and maybe increase the appeal of Italian football.”

Returning Udinese to European competition

His first concern is Udinese. The club has not finished in the top half of the table since 2013 but has started this season brightly and sits third after seven matches.

The management strategy will not change. Pozzo’s priority is investing in professionalizing the club’s management and bringing in players to create a strong team without risking Udinese’s financial future.

“It’s not easy to compete with the biggest clubs for a club with the dimension of Udinese, but we always work and we will work harder to close this gap,” he says.

“We are making a great effort in the last few years to step by step come back to compete with the top clubs, that is the ambition.

“The short to mid-term goal is to come back to (play in) European competition.”

After nearly four decades as president, and even longer as a fan, does Pozzo still get nervous watching Udinese? Does he still celebrate when Le Zebrette (The Little Zebras) score a goal and suffer when they concede?

“It’s always the same,” Pozzo says, smiling. “It’s always the same passion.”