American Owners Oversee a Soccer Renaissance in Rome

Almost immediately, a security guard rushed up; photography is strictly forbidden inside the chapel. But as the guard began to admonish the offender, he stopped short.

“Presidente Pallotta!” the guard said gleefully, recognizing the American president of one of this city’s fabled soccer clubs, A.S. Roma. He threw his arm around Pallotta’s shoulder. “Please,” he said to the group, “let’s take a picture!”

Of course, not all fan interactions here are so pleasant for Pallotta. It has been 18 months since he took control of the club’s operations, and there are still some members of the community disappointed over decisions like the one to alter the club’s logo. A general distrust lingers, too, about foreign ownership in Serie A; in 2011, Pallotta’s group became the first foreign investor to buy a major Italian soccer club. This opposition was particularly noticeable when the team struggled last season. (“Yankee Go Home” was one of the more memorable signs displayed by fans. It should be noted, however, that Pallotta, who is also a minority owner of the Boston Celtics, roots for the Red Sox.)

Recently, though, things have been primarily positive. Roma is second in the league standings and will almost certainly return to the Champions League next season. On Monday morning, Pallotta sipped coffee at his hotel and smiled when the doorman said, “Good morning, Presidente!” He had just arrived in town, where on Wednesday, Roma will reveal the design of the club’s much-discussed new stadium, which it hopes will open in 2016. The project, which will be financed privately and includes the 52,500-seat stadium as well as other entertainment sites and mass-transit additions, is expected to cost more than $300 million.

“The stadium is a very important piece for us,” Pallotta said in an interview. “With the stadium there and if we do what our plans say we’re going to do, I believe we can be one of the top three clubs in the world. That’s the goal — I’m not afraid to say it.”

Pallotta’s spirit is hardly surprising; global ambitions are de rigueur for any soccer club of meaningful size these days. Barcelona and Manchester United are pushing for an even greater presence in Asia; Bayern Munich has opened an office in New York; and this summer, Roma will tour the United States for the third consecutive year.

In other words, Pallotta’s plans are not unique. But the task and challenges facing him are surely different, primarily because of Italy’s soccer culture, not to mention its history and notorious bureaucracy.

While clubs in England and Germany have, for the most part, updated their stadiums and ticketing policies, or at the least modernized the game-day experience for fans, the infrastructure in Italy has generally lagged. Juventus is the only top club in Serie A, the top division, that owns its stadium. Roma currently shares space with its fierce city rival Lazio at Stadio Olimpico, a historic but decrepit building that has antiquated facilities and awful sightlines for fans, who are set back from the field because of the running track that surrounds it.

Sean Barror, Roma’s chief commercial officer and a longtime associate of Pallotta’s, likened the situation to what might have been found in England’s Premier League in the 1990s. That regressed reality allowed Pallotta’s group to buy into Italian soccer at a value price (he and three other investors initially paid about $89 million to buy two-thirds of Roma in 2011), but has also meant there is considerable work to be done.

“It’s generally realized that there is a significant infrastructure issue in Italy,” Barror said. “But all of it is linked together. The one thing the leagues in England and Germany have done is embrace progress in a lot of ways, and we’re trying to be at the front end of it here.”

Initially, Pallotta, who previously built a lucrative hedge fund, expected to be a passive part of the investment group. Thomas DiBenedetto, another Boston businessman, was the first frontman, but Pallotta replaced him as the head of operations in July 2012 after the group put in another infusion of cash (reportedly about $160 million).

Since then, the club has revamped its executive structure, pushed hard on the stadium project and expanded its business partnerships, selling a five-year plan of growth to brands like Nike and Disney.

“One thing I think we do really well is focus on the business side as a business,” said Italo Zanzi, the club’s chief executive. “That sounds basic, but in football, it isn’t as common as you might think.”

Zanzi was being diplomatic. In Italy, in particular, the track record for owner focus has traditionally been shortsighted. Andrea Monti, the editor in chief of the sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, said Italian owners had historically been interested exclusively in wins and losses or making big acquisitions in the player transfer market.

“The owner of the club, he usually sinks a lot of money into football for his personal joy and entertainment,” Monti said. “My personal perception is that the American way is to put together passion and business. They buy players, they sell players at a good price. They have a plan.”

Monti noted that numerous factors made building a stadium in Rome difficult — including traffic patterns and the lack of specific laws related to stadium building projects — but he said that if Roma succeeded in creating its own home, it would be a significant moment for Italian soccer.

Of course, the heart of the plan is sustained success on the field. Northern clubs like A.C. Milan, Internazionale and Juventus have won every Italian championship since 2001, but Roma seems to have found its rhythm this season under Coach Rudi Garcia.

The Giallorossi, or Yellow-Reds, are firmly in second place behind Juventus, meaning they will return to the lucrative Champions League next fall if they can hold their position. They are led by stars like Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi, native Romans who are fixtures in the city.

De Rossi, who likened the challenge of building a new stadium to “building another Colosseum,” said he found a certain personal poignancy in Pallotta’s being the one to reinvigorate the only club he has known.

After all, De Rossi said, he had always hoped to finish his career in the United States. A savvy midfielder who will turn 31 this summer, he said he initially planned to try to play his final few seasons in Major League Soccer and enjoy the experience of living abroad.

Now that Pallotta has arrived with a new vision for Roma, however, De Rossi said he was intrigued by the allure of a new stadium and the potential for his club’s rise on Europe’s biggest stages. In 2012, he signed a contract extension with the club that will keep him at Roma until 2017. Even then, he said, it is now more difficult to imagine leaving.

“I love the United States culture and I have always wanted to live there, maybe in a big city,” De Rossi said. “But it is funny: now, I will probably never live in America, and it is because of an American.”

This article originally appeared on The New York Times' website.