Roma president James Pallotta says he wants the Serie A club to emulate the likes of Leicester City, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla by being successful on a budget that is smaller than their rivals.
The U.S. hedge-fund manager acknowledged that Italian football continues to lag behind other big leagues in terms of the revenue it produces for its clubs, but he does not believe that should be an obstacle to success, even on the European stage.
"Obviously Leicester struck lightning last year, but if you look at even Atletico Madrid being in the Champions League final two of the last three years and their revenues are about €160-170 million, or Sevilla and see how well they've done," Pallotta told NBC Sports. "That's what we're trying to build in our academy programme."
Roma are therefore investing greater sums in youth development than they are in ready-made first-team players, and Pallotta is convinced this is the way forward.
"We won the Scudetto in the U18," he said. "I went and saw our 9- and 10-year olds and I was blown away at their potential. They are playing Barca-type passing styles at 9 and 10. The real goal is to build out a good internal programme on one side to find a number of 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds who can play with you.
"And we're spending a lot more time in building our data capabilities and our relationships on finding these players young here and a bunch of other places. Not just on the data side, but people with 30 years of football experience."
Roma finished third in Serie A last season -- a drop of one position on their final placing in the previous two years -- but Pallotta does not regret getting involved in the Giallorossi.
"A couple of years ago, I was asked why we looked at [investing in] Roma," he said. "I started talking about it and after a couple of minutes I said I could go on for 30 minutes but at the end of the day, it's f---ing Rome."