Italy’s football players association expressed contentment on Friday with the government’s decision not to prolong a tax relief measure benefiting foreign players on Italian teams.
These players had enjoyed a privilege similar to that granted to various university-educated specialized workers, allowing only half of their gross income to be taxable for the initial five years of their employment in Italy.
‘Italian and foreign footballers will be able to compete on the same level,’ the president of the Italian Football Players’ Association (AIC), Umberto Calcagno, said on Friday in a statement, a day after the government decided not to extend the relief.
The previous benefit, he said, had ‘penalised the entire national football movement.’
‘Finally, from January 1, Italian and foreign footballers will be in the same position, and I thank the government for this,’ Calcagno added.
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The push for extending the tax break for footballers by Sports Minister Andrea Abodi faced resistance from several government members, notably Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of the anti-migrant League party, as reported by Italy’s AGI news agency.
‘Discounts to foreign footballers who earn millions are immoral, and clubs are now investing in young Italians’, wrote Lucca Toccalini, a League parliamentarian, Thursday.
Ansa news agency said Italy’s Serie A league expressed concern over a measure it said would have ‘a result diametrically opposed to the one sought: less competitiveness for the teams resulting in less income, fewer resources for young people and less income fort he tax authorities.’