The overall debt of clubs in Serie A rose to more than €1.7B ($1.9B) during the '14 season with the situation at Parma "symptomatic of a league in general financial difficulty," according to Ben Gladwell of ESPN. Parma is "on the verge of bankruptcy;" however, an investigation by La Gazzetta dello Sport said that it is not the only Italian club "struggling to make ends meet." Inter Milan and AS Roma, two "giants of the Italian game," also have some of the biggest debts. Only six clubs in the Serie A managed to "reduce overall expenditure on wages" in ’14 with the other 12 clubs recording an increase compared to just three seasons ago. Despite this, all clubs apart from Parma have been regularly meeting deadlines for payments of wages and taxes, even if "questions are being asked where the funds are coming from." Over the past five years, overall debt has "risen by 27 percent" with the greatest sources of money now TV revenue and trading on the transfer market. Income from matchday operations and marketing, on the other hand, is "stagnating, if not regressing in certain cases." Even Juventus -- owners of its own stadium, "unlike the other clubs in Serie A" -- are posting continued losses. Juventus has been able to reduce its losses from €95.4M in '10 to €6.7M in '14, while it is "hoped the increased income from being the sole Italian club to reach the knockout stages of the Champions League" will enable them to come out of the red in '14-15. Napoli "buck the trend" though, having made profits for eight years in a row under President Aurelio De Laurentiis (ESPN, 3/5).
