Election farce mirrors state of Italian soccer

ROME: Italian football plunged further into crisis two months after the country’s dramatic World Cup exit with the failure to elect a new federation chief amid scenes of chaos in Rome.

“We’ve managed to do worse than the national side eliminated from the World Cup, and that’s a difficult feat to achieve,” said Italy’s former Ballon d’Or winner Gianni Rivera.The Italian football federation’s (FIGC) general assembly on Monday night was a replica of the chaos in the San Siro last November when four-time champions Italy realised that they would miss the World Cup finals for the first time in 60 years. Of the three candidates to replace Carlo Tavecchio as FIGC president, only former Italy and Roma player Damiano Tommasi, 41, looked to have the profile to offer the promised change needed in Italian football. But he trailed in support behind Amateur league boss Cosimo Sibilia, 58, and the president of the third-tier Lega Pro division Gabriele Gravina, 64.

The election campaign turned into one of horse trading, Tommasi refused to play ball and four long rounds of voting proved fruitless.Tommasi was eliminated before the final round with Gravina getting 39.06 percent of the vote, Sibilia 1.85 percent, with 59.09 percent blank ballots.

“This day mirrors the state of Italian football at the moment,” said Tommasi. “We didn’t have the courage to start on the path of change. I hope that after reflection it will be realised that change is necessary.”

The Italian press were harsh in their criticism, with Corriero dello Sport blasting a “farce”, Turin daily Tuttosport lamenting “a FIGC own goal” and Gazzetta dello Sport calling it a “defeat for football”.

“It’s a black page, the failure of Italian football,” commented Juventus general manager Giuseppe Marotta.The failure to elect a president will almost certainly mean that the FIGC will be placed under the guardianship of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) president Giovanni Malago who has called an extraordinary meeting for Thursday. The situation has been complicated further by the approach of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

“November 10th and January 29th are two turning points,” said Gravina. “We have shown that there is an urgent need ... to admit defeat and entrust the revival of football to third parties. “Football needs a reform, a change of political weight and to find support from CONI and the government.”