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ITALIAN TRADITIONS

EXPLAINED: Why are Italians angry at streaming platform DAZN?

The latest controversy to affect Italy, eliciting reactions from everyone from football fans to politicians, involves the streaming platform DAZN. Here's what's going on.

Published: 15 August 2022 12:30 CEST
EXPLAINED: Why are Italians angry at streaming platform DAZN?
Inter Milan's Argentinian forward Lautaro Martinez reacts after missing a goal opportunity during the Italian Serie A football match between Lecce and Inter on August 13, 2022. (Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP)

If you want to anger an Italian, one sure way is to take away their football games. This is exactly what happened on Sunday evening when the streaming platform DAZN logged users off just before the Serie A matches.

The bug couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The streaming platform has exclusive rights to the Italian first league, Serie A, and earlier this year announced a €29.99 monthly subscription and stricter rules limiting device access and blocking simultaneous viewing from different locations in an effort to curb “piracy”.

This is the first round of Serie A football matches since the new prices came in on DAZN. The championship is also coming back during the summer holidays when most Italians are home ready to watch their calcio, as Italians call soccer. 

READ ALSO: Italian word of the day: ‘Azzurro’

Many have complained that the new high prices come with a lousy service, with Sunday’s “blackout” only the most recent example. Users were given “emergency links” to log in, but many complained they could still not access the programme.

Politicians join the aggravation

Not only did the hashtag #DAZN go up the list of Italy’s trending topics (and it still holds a premium spot over there), but the dispute became political.

The country’s Democratic Party (PD) said: “tens of thousands of citizens have paid for a service in advance and now suffer with a shameful disservice, in almost all parts of Italy, for the problems with DAZN Italy”.

The party called on Agcom, the regulator and competition authority for the communication industries, and Serie A to intervene.

Politicians from all political spectrums have commented on the issue, including Carlo Calenda, Matteo Salvini (Lega), and Maurizio Gasparri (Forza Italia). Football players such as Daniele de Rossi and other Italian celebrities also complained about the lack of service.

READ ALSO: Home entertainment: a quick guide to video streaming, VPNs and audiobooks

On Sunday evening, the streaming service released a statement, later deleted, recognising the connection issues. “Some users are currently experiencing access issues on our platform. We are working hard to find a solution as soon as possible and apologise for the inconvenience.”, the company said.

What will happen now?

Most of the politicians said they would bring the problems to parliament or Italy’s communication regulator. The main issue is DAZN’s exclusivity rights to Italian football.

The problems will likely influence future decisions on who has the rights to show the games – with broadcaster Sky, which used to have broadcast rights to the matches, looking into getting back on the field.

Of course, nothing is certain yet, and at least for this season, DAZN will continue to transmit games to its subscribers.

One thing seems to be sure, though: If there is one issue that can unite all Italians, it is football.

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MOVING TO ITALY

Readers recommend: Eight books you must read to understand Italy

After we published our own recommendations of some of the best books to read for those considering a move to Italy, The Local's readers weighed in with suggestions of your own.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:24 CEST
Readers recommend: Eight books you must read to understand Italy

In our previous guide to some of the best books to read before moving to Italy, we asked our readers to get in touch with your recommendations.

A number of you responded with your favourite reads about Italy; here’s what you suggested:

Ciao Bella – Six Take Italy

An anonymous reader describes this as “a delightful book about an Australian radio presenter who takes her husband and four children Bologna for a year which turns into two years (one being Covid).”

Kate Langbroek’s comic memoir “had me laughing and crying,” they write.

A Small Place in Italy

An apt choice for those considering their own rural Italian renovation project, Sam Cross recommends this book by British writer Eric Newby about buying, remodelling and moving into a cottage in the Tuscan countryside.

Cross also recommends Newby’s earlier work, ‘Love and War in the Appennines’, about his time as a British prisoner of war captured in Italy by the Germans in WWII.

READ ALSO: Eight of the best books to read before moving to Italy

Here, the author tells of his escape assisted by local partisans, “including a girl, Wanda, who became his future wife. A beautiful story,” says Cross.

The Italians

The Italians is written by veteran Italy correspondent John Hooper, who formerly wrote for the Guardian and is now the Economist’s Italy and Vatican reporter.

From politics to family traditions and the Mafia, the book tackles a range of aspects of Italian history and culture without getting lost in the weeds.

Simone in Rome describes it as “the best single volume on Italian customs and culture there is”.

READ ALSO: Nine things to expect if you move to rural Italy

Venice

It may be more than six decades old, but Jan Morris’s Venice is still considered one of the definitive English-language works on the lagoon city.

Book, Venice, library

A woman reads a book in Venice’s famous Acqua Alta library. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Though a work of non-fiction, the book has been compared to Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited for its nostalgic, evocative tone.

“A personal view, beautifully written,” recommends reader Mary Austern.

Thin Paths

Described as a mix of travel book and memoir, Thin Paths is written by Julia Blackburn, who moved with her husband into a small house in the hills of Liguria in 1999.

Despite arriving with no Italian, over time she befriended her elderly neighbours, who took her into their confidence and shared stories of the village’s history under the control of a tyrannical landowner and the outbreak of World War II.

“Write it down for us,” they told her, “because otherwise it will all be lost.”

READ ALSO: Six things foreigners should expect if they live in Rome

In Other Words

If you’re currently learning Italian, consider Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words / In Altre Parole, which discusses the writer’s journey towards mastery of Italian through full immersion.

Reader Brett says, “The book is written in both Italian and English, presented on opposite pages, so it’s also a nice learning tool!”

Lahiri has since written Racconti Romani, or Roman Tales, a series of short stories set in and around Rome riffing off Alberto Moravia’s 1954 short story collection of the same name.

A Rosie Life in Italy

Ginger Hamilton says she would “highly recommend the ‘A Rosie Life in Italy’ series by Rosie Meleady.”

It’s “the delightfully written true story of an Irish couple’s move to Italy, purchase of a home, the process of rehabbing it, and their life near Lago di Trasimeno.”

The Dark Heart of Italy

Reader William describes The Dark Heart of Italy by Tobias Jones as an “excellent” book.

The product of a three-year journey across the Italy, Jones takes on the darker side of Italian culture, from organised crime to excessive bureaucracy.

Though it was published in 2003, Dark Heart stands the test of time: “twenty-odd years old but the essential truth of it hasn’t changed,” William writes.

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