Leave it to Serie A to give us one giant mess of a situation before the 2025-26 season comes to a close in a couple of weeks.
And this one doesn’t involve just one or two teams. More like half of the damn league.
You see, this all stems from Serie A originally moving up all games with Champions League qualification implications — including Juventus’ final home game of the season against Fiorentina — to the lunchtime kickoff window on Sunday afternoon. But then Tuesday happened when the Rome derby between
Roma and Lazio was suddenly moved to Monday night by the Rome Prefect, with the logic behind it is that local officials were concerned about the conflict it’s previous kickoff time would have with the men’s final of the Italian Open tennis tournament.
It has left things in complete limbo. Clubs from the four other fixtures — including Juventus — are rightfully fuming because they are still being left in the lurch and the penultimate fixture of the season with very large stakes attached to it still doesn’t have a definitive kickoff day and time.
As of Wednesday evening, an emergency appeal has been sent to the Regional Administrative Court (TAR), according to Sky Italia. That should mean that there is a decision at some point Thursday — maybe as early as the afternoon. But the simple fact that Juventus are entering the back end of the week and still don’t know when they are actually playing against Fiorentina — as well as fans who have tickets don’t know if it’s a Sunday afternoon kickoff or moved to Monday night! —
According to ANSA just before the appeal to TAR was filed, Serie A’s proposal of playing the Rome derby at noon on Sunday rather than the original 12:30 p.m. kickoff time is “”not viable,“ and the Rome Prefect’s decision to play it Monday night remains intact. That has thus resulted in the aforementioned appeal to TAR.
All of this is just … chef’s kiss. It’s so predictably Italy in ever sense of the sequence of events.
The sole purpose — and completely justifiable — of the decision to move all five fixtures with Champions League qualification implications attached to them was to ensure fairness. The problem is, with there being all of three points between Napoli in second place and Como in sixth, there’s a whole lot of fairness that needs to be spread out. Five fixtures have these big stakes attached to them, and therefore moving all five of them to the lunchtime kickoff means you’re shifting half of the Matchday 37 schedule at the beginning of the week.
They did that with plenty of time to spare. OK, great. The lunchtime kickoff time slot is rough for many of us who don’t live in Europe or time zones that are further ahead than Italy’s, but it’s understandable as to why they did it. (This would also be Fiorentina’s second Sunday lunchtime kickoff in less than a month, which is just kinda funny unless you live in a time zone that is in North or Central America.)
But now we’re on the second day of this controversy. A decision is expected Thursday, but the fact that it has even reached a third day of dominating the discussion around Serie A rather than what is at stake the next two weekends is a perfect encapsulation of Italian football in 2026. Or in 2025. Or for whatever time frame you want to choose because it feels all too appropriate right now.
Either way, this is the case: Juventus manager Luciano Spalletti will wake up Thursday morning and still not know when his team is playing against Fiorentina this weekend. That just feels a little abnormal to write at any point of the season, let alone with all of 180 minutes or so left to go.
