Prudence pays for revived Lazio

There are few greater examples of the new financial realities facing Italian football than S.S. Lazio. The last time the Rome club played in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League in 2003/04 they fielded a side that cost a combined €113m. If they succeed in returning they will do so with a likely starting eleven that set them back just €18m.

Crespo fortune
The days of the mega-deal are long gone at Lazio where transfers such as the €52m the club paid Parma FC for Hernán Crespo seven years ago are memories of what feels like a very distant past. It will be some time before that sort of money is spent again by the Biancocelesti, who since Claudio Lotito saved the club from bankruptcy in 2004, have become a shining light for fiscal prudence in Serie A.

Powerhouse
Lazio were one of Europe's powerhouses when they kicked off the 2001/02 campaign. Over the previous two seasons the club had won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Italian Cup to go with their second Scudetto in 2000. With the likes of Gaizka Mendieta, Alessandro Nesta, Crespo, Claudio López, Jaap Stam, Dejan Stanković and Karel Poborský at the disposal of coach Alberto Zaccheroni, the future looked bright.

Bankruptcy looms
Off the pitch, though, the dark clouds were gathering. It soon transpired president Sergio Cragnotti's spending spree had been the result of some 'finanza creativa' and when his Cirio food company went bust and he was arrested on fraud charges in 2003, bankruptcy loomed for Lazio. With debts of €200m, the fire sale began. Though Lazio had qualified for the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League the decline had set in. Step forward Lotito, who despite never having been involved in football before, invested some of the fortune made from his cleaning and surveillance companies into turning the club around.

'New life'
"They were already celebrating Lazio's funeral," Lotito said after buying up a controlling share in 2004. "I have given the club new life but it's still in a coma." The selling continued, but it was clear a new era had begun. Lotito reached an agreement with the Italian Government to pay back the €170m they owed in outstanding taxes over 23 years and a salary cap was introduced. No player in the squad to face FC Dinamo 1948 Bucuresti in the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round earns more than €750,000 a year, including bonuses.

Admirers
"Lazio are the only club that doesn't spend more than €22m on players' wages," Lotito told Il Messaggero. "I'm struggling to change the old attitude of football players. When I introduced the salary cap three years ago everybody made fun of me. But now they’re all changing their minds." The Biancocelesti are a completely different team to the one that last reached the group stage and now boast a powerful Italian spine, with Sebastiano Siviglia and Luciano Zauri at the back, Massimo Mutarelli and Stefano Mauri in midfield and Tommaso Rocchi, scorer of 16 Serie A goals in each of the last two seasons, up front.

'New beginning'
The aim now is to pick up from where they left off last season. "I hope my players will fight with the same determination they showed last year," Lotito said. "These two matches [against Dinamo] are the final steps on the path we started last year and they could represent a new beginning for us. We know how important it is to get back on the European scene, from a footballing and financial point of view."

This is an abridged version of a story that appears in this week's edition of the uefa.com Magazine. To read it in full click here.