The presidents of 42 Italian series A and B football clubs met at the end of November in a second attempt to elect a president for FIFA, the Italian football federation. At the first attempt on 5 November the outgoing president, Adriano Galiani, the only candidate, did not gain enough votes for re-election. At the second attempt the situation was unchanged and the election has now been abandoned until January 2005.

Galiani is seen by many of the club presidents as not sufficiently impartial. He is the vice president of the Milan football club (the team owned by Italys prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, currently league champions) and close to Mediaset, the multi-media company, whose vice president is Piersilvio Berlusconi, son of the prime minister.

On the day following the failed election Mediaset announced that it was to begin live broadcasts of some series A football matches for viewers with terrestrial digital decoders (which in Italy have been available with a government subsidies). To watch these matches viewers will have to buy a smart card in advance; each match will cost 3 and the cards will be in units of three or six matches. Viewers who wish to watch live football, but opted for Mediaset competitor, Sky TV, which is owned by Rupert Murdock, are obliged to buy a monthly package of channels. At the end of November the minimum price for a package with football was 47 a month.