Serie A Going Down to Bundesliga in UEFA League Rankings for Champions League

It seems that past mistakes made by the Italians have finally caught up with them and now another downward step is on the cards this year of Serie A dropping out of top three UEFA Champions League qualifying positions.

It’s been a while since the downfall of Serie A started and 2006’s notorious match-fixing Calciopoli scandal further aggravated it, in which Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Reggina, and Lazio were implicated and later punished.

As penalty, Juventus were sent to Serie B and stripped of their 2006-2007 Champions League place, along with Fiorentina. Lazio was booted out of UEFA Cup. Point penalties were handed to AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, Reggina, and Juventus. Because of this, Serie A lost valuable points which could be gained in UEFA tournaments, a situation that might haunt them in at least the next five years to come.

Should the Bundesliga gain more points from current UEFA competitions, then it will get four Champions League places for 2011-2012 season and in the process reduce Serie A’s to three only.

Bayern Munich's win over Lyon to get to the final and Hamburg pushing Fulham for the Europa League final will edge Serie A off its third place in the UEFA rankings.

Having said that, if the Bundesliga loses in its quest to leapfrog Serie A this year, then still they can do it in 2011, which will make them eligible for the 2012-2013.

In 2005-2006 AC Milan, Juventus, and Inter Milan reached the quarterfinals stage and contributed to a massive haul of 15.357 to Bundesliga’s meager 10.437. But this will be out of reckoning next year when qualification calculations will be made for the 2012-2013 season.

New coefficients are set to be announced next day of Champions League final in Real Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. Let us hope that if this were to happen then it will be a wake-up call and stimulus for the Italians to get their act together if they want to stay at the pinnacle of European and world soccer.