Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini has had enough of Italian football, and he is now preparing to sell the club.
The irascible and whimsical Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini dramatically registered his displeasure at the state of Italian football by announcing his intention to resign and sell the club to a suitable bidder.
Zamparini's decision came in the wake of Palermo's 3-1 loss to Milan yesterday, after which he announced his intention to leave the club:
"I am selling Palermo and I am leaving football. I have had enough. Tomorrow I will resign. I thought things had changed, but there is still the same sordidness in Italian football."
The 69-year-old Zamparini was livid with what he perceived as biased refereeing, and even Palermo coach Delio Rossi complained of the skewed officiating after the match.
However, Zamparini has displayed impotent rage before, so many took his emotional reaction as knee-jerk. Yet, today he issued a statement on the official Palermo website, intimating his intention to walk away:
"I have given the go ahead to identify an 'advisor' to entrust with the sale of shares in Palermo football club. My decision is firm even in the suffering that I feel in leaving a beautiful group of fans like Palermo's with whom I am tied by a deep and mutual affection.
"The new owner of the club must certainly be of such a level as to guarantee the support of our objectives: that of being a great club."
"Everything is owed to the fact that I feel and I leave defeated by a pseudo-sporting world, where, despite my 24-year ultra-like fight, the values of sport are vanishing ever more, where the economic and media power of three or four clubs that only want to share the Scudetti rules.
"I am tired of fighting also for my age. I hope to leave the helm to younger people who have the enthusiasm and the strength to fight and to change [football] for the better where I haven't managed to do so, bringing the world of football back to the ambit of sport and of true values, ensuring games where the teams are on equal terms and the best can win with mutual guarantees of sporting fair play."
Many could be forgiven for not knowing that Zamparini was fighting the good fight all this time. The apparent measured and principled stand that he is taking contrasts dramatically with his impatience in other administrative contexts. After all, he is known as a serial sacker of coaches, as his reigns at Vicenza and Palermo have left more than twenty sacked coaches in its wake. In one case, Francesco Guidolin, a laconic man who took all decisions with remarkable grace, was farcically sacked three times by Zamparini.
Yet, Zamparini's reference to the lack of "sport[ing] and true values" in Italian football should not be entirely dismissed. He is not so subtly alluding to the 2006 Calciopoli scandal that tore right through Italian football, uncovering a trail of corrupt officials and leaving Juventus, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Milan penalized for their part in one of the most depraved and shocking scandals in the history of sport.
There is certainly no proof that yesterday's refereeing was dishonest, and, to be fair, the game was not witness to the most egregious decisions this season. However, Zamparini was pulling at the heart-strings of an Italian audience that is conspiracy-mad, in which all decisions are seen as being motivated by corruption and vested interests in power. After the 2006 scandal, who can blame them? Furthermore, Palermo's status as a Sicilian club from the poor south of Italy does not contribute to its political clout. Zamparini did not say so, but the "three or four clubs" that he indicates as the main runners of the show also happen to be overwhelmingly from the north of Italy: Inter, Milan, and Juventus.
Zamparini's indecision and public outbursts are legendary and even comedic. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether even this latest move by Zamparini is sincere, but he is not the first one to be left cynical by Italian football.
Zamparini's decision came in the wake of Palermo's 3-1 loss to Milan yesterday, after which he announced his intention to leave the club:
"I am selling Palermo and I am leaving football. I have had enough. Tomorrow I will resign. I thought things had changed, but there is still the same sordidness in Italian football."
The 69-year-old Zamparini was livid with what he perceived as biased refereeing, and even Palermo coach Delio Rossi complained of the skewed officiating after the match.
However, Zamparini has displayed impotent rage before, so many took his emotional reaction as knee-jerk. Yet, today he issued a statement on the official Palermo website, intimating his intention to walk away:
"I have given the go ahead to identify an 'advisor' to entrust with the sale of shares in Palermo football club. My decision is firm even in the suffering that I feel in leaving a beautiful group of fans like Palermo's with whom I am tied by a deep and mutual affection.
"The new owner of the club must certainly be of such a level as to guarantee the support of our objectives: that of being a great club."
"Everything is owed to the fact that I feel and I leave defeated by a pseudo-sporting world, where, despite my 24-year ultra-like fight, the values of sport are vanishing ever more, where the economic and media power of three or four clubs that only want to share the Scudetti rules.
"I am tired of fighting also for my age. I hope to leave the helm to younger people who have the enthusiasm and the strength to fight and to change [football] for the better where I haven't managed to do so, bringing the world of football back to the ambit of sport and of true values, ensuring games where the teams are on equal terms and the best can win with mutual guarantees of sporting fair play."
Many could be forgiven for not knowing that Zamparini was fighting the good fight all this time. The apparent measured and principled stand that he is taking contrasts dramatically with his impatience in other administrative contexts. After all, he is known as a serial sacker of coaches, as his reigns at Vicenza and Palermo have left more than twenty sacked coaches in its wake. In one case, Francesco Guidolin, a laconic man who took all decisions with remarkable grace, was farcically sacked three times by Zamparini.
Yet, Zamparini's reference to the lack of "sport[ing] and true values" in Italian football should not be entirely dismissed. He is not so subtly alluding to the 2006 Calciopoli scandal that tore right through Italian football, uncovering a trail of corrupt officials and leaving Juventus, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Milan penalized for their part in one of the most depraved and shocking scandals in the history of sport.
There is certainly no proof that yesterday's refereeing was dishonest, and, to be fair, the game was not witness to the most egregious decisions this season. However, Zamparini was pulling at the heart-strings of an Italian audience that is conspiracy-mad, in which all decisions are seen as being motivated by corruption and vested interests in power. After the 2006 scandal, who can blame them? Furthermore, Palermo's status as a Sicilian club from the poor south of Italy does not contribute to its political clout. Zamparini did not say so, but the "three or four clubs" that he indicates as the main runners of the show also happen to be overwhelmingly from the north of Italy: Inter, Milan, and Juventus.
Zamparini's indecision and public outbursts are legendary and even comedic. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether even this latest move by Zamparini is sincere, but he is not the first one to be left cynical by Italian football.
