Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
A retired offensive lineman on this side of the Atlantic, Justin Pugh has been tasked with taking American football to the next level in the land of his wife’s ancestors.
After 11 seasons as an offensive lineman for the New York Giants and Arizona Cardinals, the next act of Justin Pugh’s life in American football has taken him to Italy, of all places. In February Pugh, 36, accepted the job of commissioner of the Italian Football League, becoming the first American to hold the position.
Don’t feel badly if you haven’t heard of the Italian Football League. Pugh only learned of it himself while on honeymoon with his wife, Angela, in Italy in 2022. The IFL was founded in 1978 and played its first season in 1980. It is made up of 12 teams from across the country, with the 13-game regular season beginning in February and culminating in July with the annual Italian Bowl.
This year the Florence-based squad Guelfi Firenze defeated the Parma Panthers 53-43 at Italian Bowl XLV.
Pugh says he was first approached to invest in the league in 2024.
“I’ve met a lot of people, political figures and the people growing the game in Italy,” Pugh says. “I’ve been finding out who the people we want to work with are.”
Pugh’s five-year plan is to drive revenue to the point where the IFL is sustainable for owners.
“That means getting the league into more eyeballs, getting more people to love the game,” Pugh says. “Until the teams are sustainable, it’s hard to pay players crazy salaries.”
The first step is getting the basics right, which takes a lot of work.
Italian Bow XLV was played at Stadio Paolo Mazza, a 16,134-seat capacity stadium that, like nearly every place the IFL plays, primarily hosts the other football.
“There are only three (American-style) football fields that I know of in Italy,” Pugh says. “If we get someone to tune in to a game we need to make sure it meets expectations, like that all the lines on the field are painted the right way.”
Pugh said the team rosters are mostly made up of Italians but often teams will hire an American import to play quarterback. One of the rare exceptions is league champion Guelfi Firenze, who are led by quarterback Andrea Fimiani, who has earned MVP honors the last two seasons.
He hopes that the league’s growth will encourage more Italian kids to pursue the sport and hopefully one day become a starter at a high-level American college football program.
He also hopes that the NFL picks Italy to host a regular season game as part of its ongoing international series. Other European nations that have hosted NFL games include England, Ireland, Spain and Germany. France will be added to that list after the 2026-27 season.
In a certain sense, Pugh believes American football was born in the Colosseum.
“I think the idea of sport as a spectacle was born in Italy,” Pugh says. “Having the NFL host a game in Rome or Milan is a top priority, but we have to crawl before we can run.”
Hollywood may play a role in boosting the IFL’s profile in the coming years, according to Pugh. In December 2024, Skydance Media revealed that it’s working on a film adaptation of the 2007 John Grisham novel “Playing For Pizza,” about an aging NFL quarterback who accepts an offer to play in the IFL.
“Hopefully, the film is funded because it would really remind people that one of the most famous authors has a book about this league,” Pugh says.
Pugh does not have Italian roots himself but he married into it. He says his wife, Angela, comes from one of the proudest Italian-American families you’ll ever meet.
“My father-in-law has an Italian flag on his truck,” Pugh says with a laugh.
Beyond his family, Pugh says that because he played for the New York Giants as a pro and at Stanford in college, he is no stranger to Italian Americans.
“There are strong Italian communities in New York,” Pugh says. “And the NY Giants probably have the largest fan base among Italians.”
The above article appears in the October 2026 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture.
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