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Italy and Spain, often end up ‘fighting it out’ on the football pitch. The past weeks saw Roma and Juventus facing Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively. The matches were the most emotional and had different outcomes for the two countries. But one can easily say that in the past decade, the Italian Serie A was overtaken by the Spanish Liga in terms of its attractiveness and wealth.
It’s not clear whether there’s any correlation between football and the overall wealth of a country however an analysis by the Financial Times of recent IMF data, reports that Spain got richer by 10%, when compared to Italy. But the news is the fact that in 10 years, Italy got poorer.
Italy, which currently is stuck in a political gridlock, is lagging behind Spain, who’s per capita gross domestic product exceeded that of Italy.
The IMF also forecast that Spain, that in the next five years, Spain would become 7 per cent richer than Italy.
Just over 10 years ago, Italy was 10 per cent richer on the same basis. The data and forecasts show the sharply diverging fortunes of two countries that were severely hit by the eurozone economic crisis over the past decade. While Spain is now one of the fastest growing countries among leading EU economies, Italy remains an economic laggard. The FT reports that by 2023 some former Soviet bloc countries, including Slovakia and the Czech Republic, are also expected to become richer than Italy on a per capita basis. 
