All but Lecce of the 20 clubs in Serie A issued a statement on Thursday saying they would be breaking away to set up the "Serie A football league." [break]
"We´ve made a new first division," Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini told ANSA news agency. "Am I satisfied? No, but it is necessary."
Clubs such as Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan have long campaigned for greater autonomy and have looked enviously at England´s Premier League, which created a financial revolution that made its clubs the richest in the world after it broke away from England´s Football League in 1992.
Italian clubs have come in for scathing criticism after only Udinese, in the UEFA Cup, reached the quarterfinals of a European competition this season. In response, clubs have said they are unable to compete with the wages offered by English and Spanish sides.
Maurizio Beretta, a former journalist, has been chosen to set up the new league, the statement said.
"The mandate is clear," he told reporters. "To start building a first division. There are various aspects to sort out. The mechanism will be put in place over the next 12 months."
AC Milan vice president Adriano Galliani told ANSA: "We will start work on this league straight away, because it has to be in operation by July 1, 2010. We have told the president of the Italian federation."
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