I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a story of football, politics and the judiciary in Italy. You can, if you choose, write it off as being the sort of thing that one might expect to happen in Italy but, in my view, that would be rash. Last season the Football League introduced a point deduction sanction for those who go into receivership. We are only a few steps away from finding ourselves in the middle of the story that I am about to recount.
On the 15th of May 2005, Napoli beat Giulianova away 2-1 and ended up 3rd in the Serie C1 table behind Avellino and Rimini, the latter finishing as champions and being promoted automatically to Serie B. That left Avellino, Napoli, Sambenedettese and Reggiana in the play-offs for the other promotion place. Napoli played Sambenedettese home and away on the 29th of May and the 5th of June and, drawing the away leg 1-1 and winning at home 2-0, proceeded to the play-off finals against Avellino. The final was also played over two legs on the 12th and 19th of June, Napoli playing the first leg at home (at the Stadio San Paolo). They drew 0-0 at home and lost 2-1 away. They were condemned to another season in the 3rd division.
That was not the end of it however. No sooner had the final whistle been blown than everyone was talking about the possibility of ‘ripescaggio’. ‘Ripescare’ means, literally, to fish out again and this is how it works. At the end of every season, all of the 276 football clubs in Serie A (20 clubs), B (22 clubs), C1 (Divisions A and B) (36 clubs), C2 (Divisions A to C) (56 clubs) and D (Divisions A to I) (162 amateur clubs) have to apply for membership in the coming season of the division in which they finished the previous season. Their membership application must include full financial accounts and guarantees that they have paid all the subscriptions, dues and fees that they are required to pay to insurers, taxmen and anyone else who might conceivably require payment from them. That application had to be submitted by something like the 8th of July. Anyway, the applications are scrutinised by the various branches of the Football League and, if everything is in order, the application is approved.
However, the shenanigans begin if everything is not in order. If there are ‘irregularities’, the application is refused. If membership is refused, there are two options. The club either starts again from the bottom or applies for application of the ‘Lodo Petrucci’. The Lodo Petrucci allows clubs to start again from the division below the one in which they applied for membership. So, for example, Torino were promoted to Serie A at the end of the 2004/05 season but their application was refused so if they were to apply for application of the Lodo Petrucci and that application were successful they would go back to Serie B.
Clubs wanting to ‘benefit’ from the provisions of the Lodo Petrucci had to have their applications in to the Football League within five days after the date on which the decision refusing their memberships application was made. The decision for all clubs was made on the 15th of July so clubs had until the 22nd to apply for the Lodo Petrucci (a couple only just made it). The decision made on the 15th of July is then subject to the scrutiny ‘Commissione per la vigilanza controllo delle società di calcio professionistiche (CO.VI.SOC)’ (or Commission for the Supervision and Control of Professional Football Clubs) and ‘Commissione d'Appello per la vigilanza controllo delle società di calcio professionistiche (CO.A.VI.SOC)’ (or Appeals Commission for the Supervision and Control of Professional Football Clubs). Their decision was published on the 27th of July.
However, all of the clubs whose membership applications were refused have the right to appeal to the Tribunale Amministrativa Regionale del Lazio (the TAR del Lazio or, in English the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio (the region not the club)) and if they lose there to the ‘Consiglio di Stato’ which is an advisory body to the Italian government on administrative matters and their legal implications. The result is that those whose membership is refused have now to set two or three hares running at the same time. They must appeal to the Consiglio di Stato but, just in case they lose their appeal, they have to apply for the Lodo Petrucci because if they lose their appeal and they don’t apply for the Lodo Petrucci, they would have to go back to the beginning, not passing ‘GO’ and not collecting £200.
Of course, Torino have been promoted and may end up being relegated, in effect, back to the same division that they played in last season but it can also operate so that a club that ended up in mid-table in B last season gets relegated to C1 purely on financial grounds. So it is with Perugia and Salernitana. Neither club was promoted last season but both, as it were, earned, on the pitch, the right to remain in Serie B. However, both membership applications for Serie B were refused. Both have appealed to the TAR del Lazio and both have applied for the Lodo Petrucci in case.
Now, if both lose their appeals and end up getting the Petrucci treatment they will end up in Serie C1. This is where the talk of ripescaggio comes in. If that happens, Napoli will be in pole position to take their place because not only were they the losing finalists in the play-offs but they are also financially sound. That is not a given, however. If a club has been the beneficiary of the ‘Ripescaggi’ in the last five years, they cannot be promoted in this manner.
At the same time as all this is going on clubs are trying to prepare for the coming season. Take Napoli for example. Their application for membership of C1 has been approved but there is a possibility that they might be promoted to take the place of Salernitana or Perugia so Edy Reja, the Napoli coach, and Pierpaolo Marino, the Director General, are trying to build two contingency teams – one for Serie C1 and one for Serie B. They have managed to sign Fabio Virgili (‘keeper), Nicola Amodio (midfielder), Mariano Bogliacino (midfielder), Gennaro Iezzo (‘keeper), Massimiliano Varricchio (attacker), Fabio Gatti (midfielder), Roberto Carlos Sosa (attacker) and Inacio Pia’ (attacker) all of whom are considered to be capable of making a valuable contribution in either Serie C1 or B and who are prepared to sign regardless of which division Napoli end up playing in.
However, Michele Pazienza (midfielder), Paolo Cannavaro (defender), Daniele Portanova (defender), Pietro Accardi (defender), Michele Ferri (defender), Kewullay Conteh (defender), Christian Rigano’ (attacker), Franco Brienza (attacker), Giorgio Corona (attacker), Emilson S Cribari (defender), Dino Fava Passaro (attacker), Simone Paolo Puleo (defender) and Vincenzo Morretti (defender) are all waiting to see whether Napoli get promoted to Serie B via the Ripescaggio before they sign the contract that they have agreed to provisionally.
Now I can hear the howls of jealousy at the number of players who Edy and Pierpaolo have signed, or potentially signed, during the summer (2 ‘keepers, 8 defenders, 3 midfielders and 7 attackers) but you have to remember that Napoli was liquidated at the end of the 2003/04 season and is still effectively building a team from nothing. It is also important to note that their president, the creator of the new club, is Aurelio de Laurentiis, nephew or something of Dino de Laurentiis (the Hollywood film producer) and film producer himself and owner of the Rome based film production company Filmauro. He has lots of money!
Anyway, returning to the story, the appeals and counter-appeals will not have been finally all cried out until the Consiglio di Stato gives its verdict possibly as late as the 24th of August. After that, the committee of the Football League will meet again and sort out who’s where and, only then will the fixture lists be published. The first game will kick off in the middle of September – last season it was the 12th.
What do we learn from this story? It might be this. If the Football League were to introduce similar membership criteria to those applied in Italy, the Alex could quite feasibly end up in the Premiership because they’re just about the only club in the Championship that is financially sound.
On the other hand, having lived this summer chaos for two summers on the trot now – last summer when Napoli’s application was refused and they ended up going into liquidation and a new Napoli was founded and this summer with the possibility of promotion and the total uncertainty that has accompanied both – I am really not sure that I could handle it every closed season. I kinda like my quiet Alex summers. I can see the attraction of both but remember that Ripescaggio can send you up as well as down.