Is Serie A really in decline - Discuss?

I was reading the latest edition of World Soccer yesterday and there was an interesting article suggesting that with the sale of Ibra and Silva from Milan to PSG, Serie A had fallen behind French League 1? I am not so sure it has and reports of a Serie A decline appear far wide of the mark in my humble opinion. Sure, selling Silva looks to be a big own goal but as for Ibra well come on he is pushing 31 afterall and cannot go on forever - take the money and run!

OK, PSG may have a wealthy benefactor but there is not one club including PSG that would win Serie A! and not another discounting PSG who has the spending power of say Juve and Inter!

Madrid has not won the Champions League for 10 years, whereas Milan won it only 5 years ago - does that make Real Madrid in decline? Of course not!

Financially it is not the major puller anymore but as for quality it really is not too bad surely?


Afterall there are poor players in the EPL and even the championship, League 1 who are on big money! does not make them any better does it!

The sales of Lavezzi and in particular Ibra and Silva to Ligue 1 are very disappointing, never before have the best players from Serie A left to go to France. Still not a clue why Milan sold them two and they're still being stingy and looking for cheap deals, stuff like that doesn't help the league overall.

But I'd say Serie A is still pretty strong overall. Milan and Inter need to improve big time though, I can't remember their squad's being so weak.

The vast majority of the Italian national team who performed so well at Euro 2012 play in Serie A so there's plenty of home grown talent too in the bigger teams which isn't the case for every major league.

Edit - obviously Serie A is nothing like it was in the late 90's, early 00's, when it was the place to be, but I think it's clear to everyone there's been a decline since then. The 'seven sisters' all had such amazing squads back then, Serie A was at its peak.

Your are rigtht that it is not on par with Serie A of the 90's and early 00's that is for sure, but the article suggested the french league is now in pole position over Serie A - one swallow does not make a summer and PSG does not tipify the French league overall.

You are right though both Milan and Inter have fallen massively in the last two years - but I would back both to come back stronger!

Well a lot of things combine to skew things. The tax situation in some countries, such as Spain, gives them an advantage in signing players and any team with a "sugar daddy" will also skew things too. Not been taking much notice of the French league apart from how it affects Milan so don't know if it is down to one team or a more widespread renaissance.

But why any players should trust AC after the way they dealt with Silva is anyone's guess. I guess by getting him to sign a new contract when they had no intention of keeping him was a way of screwing a better fee out of PSG but it is no way to treat a player unless there is something we don't know.