Continue To Fail & Italy Will Lose Champions League Places - Giancarlo Abete

President of the Italian FA (FIGC) Giancarlo Abete has issued a stark warning to Serie A's European represenatives, warning them that continental failures will cost Italy a Champions League place.

Italians teams failed miserably in Europe last term, and Abete is demanding improvement. Failure will mean four places in the Champions League will be cut down to just three based on UEFA's coefficient ranking system which determines how many clubs from each country can participate.

Italy are currenly in third place behind England and Spain, and Abete has underlined the significance of improving.

"At the moment we are allowed three teams in the Champions League plus one in the preliminaries. However, Germany has been closing the gap and we can lose a place within two years if the failures continue as Italian results in Europe have been negative," Abete told Il Corriere Dello Sport.

"We have to return to be the protagonists with our European clubs otherwise we will lose a place in the Champions League. German football is about to overtake us. Another season like that last and that's that."

UEFA coeffeicients are based on the previous 5 years. As it stands, Italy are about 6 poits ahead of Germany, but after next years competition the 04/05 coefficiants will no longer be counted, where Italy had 4 points more than Germany, so this will bring the gap down to just 2 points. The next season, the 05/06 coefficiants will not be counted, where Italy had a 5 point lead.. so that's 9 points Italy will lose over Germany. German teams have been doing well in the UEFA which is also helping their rating go up, so I predict by the 2011/12 Champions League, Italy wil have only 3 CL places.