Roma will celebrate its centennial season still at the Olimpico. The club has officially renewed its lease agreement with Sport e Salute, allowing the Giallorossi to use the Foro Italico venue through 2028. The deal, signed this morning, removes any doubts about the immediate future: Roma will continue to play its home matches at the stadium it shares with Lazio, once again postponing the dream of opening its own ground.
The new stadium in Pietralata, according to the club’s original plans, was supposed to be ready by the 2027–28 season. But the project remains stuck at the stage of preliminary archaeological digs, with final approval expected in the fall. It’s difficult, then, to imagine a faster timeline. For now, Roma stays at the Olimpico, with both sides expressing satisfaction. Sport e Salute called it a “consolidated partnership projected toward a future of shared success”, while CEO Diego Nepi Molineris described the agreement as “the only case where two teams both come out winners from the same match”.
The stadium problem in Italy
Roma’s story is emblematic of a broader issue that affects much of Italian soccer: the chronic difficulty in building modern, privately owned stadiums. Today, more than thirty years after the first European clubs began investing in their own grounds, Serie A still lags behind.
The reference point remains Juventus, which opened the Allianz Stadium in 2011, the first fully club-owned venue in Italy. Udinese followed with the renovation of the Dacia Arena, and Sassuolo purchased and modernized the Mapei Stadium. Atalanta, finally, secured ownership of the Gewiss Stadium in 2017, after winning the public auction launched by the city of Bergamo.
But these are exceptions in a landscape where most clubs still play in municipally owned stadiums—often outdated and costly to maintain.
Milan and Inter have embarked on a long, winding process to replace San Siro, juggling abandoned projects and new proposals still under debate. Fiorentina has started the redevelopment of the Franchi, but the timeline and costs remain uncertain. Bologna has approved plans to revamp the Dall’Ara, yet the road ahead is long. Napoli and Lazio, meanwhile, have not taken concrete steps toward alternatives to their municipal venues.
A structural issue
Italy’s delay is not only economic but also regulatory and cultural. The bureaucratic process for launching a new stadium is complex, zoning restrictions weigh heavily, and collaboration with local governments is often lacking. The result is a competitive disadvantage compared to European clubs that benefit from modern, multifunctional stadiums capable of generating revenue streams beyond soccer.
Roma’s renewed deal with the Olimpico is therefore a necessary but temporary solution. The hope, both for the Giallorossi and for Italian soccer as a whole, is that the coming years will finally bring acceleration toward privately owned stadiums—able to provide financial breathing room and a stronger future for the game in Italy.
L’articolo Roma renews Olimpico lease through 2028: Centennial season without a new stadium. The state of privately owned stadiums in Italy proviene da Soccer Made In Italy.
