The Italian professional football has been defined both by the press and the TV as sick and commoditized as characterized by numerous problems and forms of deviant behaviors put into practice by styles of management and systems of governance which are not always proper to sports clubs. The issues raised have been well documented ever since 2006 by the now infamous events of Calciopoli. The causes of these problems are owing in part to the global financial crisis and partly to the bad management and governance of sports clubs which over the last ten years, have helped transform the oldest sport in the world into a real and proper cultural industry: of television entertainment and showbiz. The present work aims to stimulate reflections on the possible underlying causes of deviant behaviors that characterize this world: starting from the current situation of economic and financial crisis that puts a strain on many of the sports clubs in question, and to identify any types of behaviors that are configured within the social structure of the system and those which have to do with the social capital of the companies that manage it.
Keywords: Sports clubs, social capital, governance.