|
LA CRISI DEL PARMA SPIEGATA AGLI INGLESI
Long faces as Parma ride out financial storm
By Roberto Perrone
(06/01/2004)
For more than 10 years Parma has been the happy island of Italian football. Without the tensions of the great cities like Rome and Milan, everyone found it a pleasure to go there. Good food, cordial society, a jewel stadium in the 'England style'. The players, too, were happy. But now Parma is a storm island.
The collapse of Parmalat, the food group who own Parma, leaves the Serie A club, twice winners of the UEFA Cup in the 1990s and one of Italy's most popular sides, struggling to avoid liquidation. Parmalat were declared insolvent last week in a corporate scandal that has convulsed Italy.
The golden age of Italian football ended two years ago with the failure of Fiorentina. Juventus have been the only club with budgets regularly in surplus. The other top clubs have always counted on the great industrial and financial muscle of their presidents.
There was the collapse of the cinematographic empire of Fiorentina's Vittorio Cecchi Gori. The problems of Sergio Cragnotti's Cirio swept up Lazio. Once great Napoli are now impoverished Serie B also-rans. Roma, the leaders of Serie A, are also in need of a cash injection.
Now Parma are staring into the financial black hole left by Parmalat. Parma's last set of accounts showed a loss of 77 million euros (£54 million). The next shareholders' meeting has been delayed from Dec 31 to to Jan 9, but is likely to be put back still further.
Much depends on the decisions of Enrico Bondi, the financial expert now running the shell of the Parmalat empire, who warns that the football club are not a priority. Parma's situation is so serious that they need 50 million euros to survive.
There is some hope, in the form of Massimo Moratti, Inter Milan president, who has paid 23 million euros for Parma's half-share of Adriano, the Brazilian striker who will return to Milan in June.
The French goalkeeper, Sebastien Frey, is being linked with a move to England, Japanese midfielder Hidetoshi Nakata has already moved on loan to Parma's regional rivals Bologna.
Yet it could have been worse. Two years ago, Parma changed their policy on signing players. No more star names, instead groom young players. The wage bill tumbled from 90 million euros to 30 million.
Parma's debts go back to the end of the 1990s when their owners, the Tanzi family acquired a lot of expensive but ineffective players, including Stoichkov, Ortega, Micoud and Milosevic for a combined 30 million euros and a coach, Daniel Passarella, for 3 million who was sacked after five games.
The reorganisation of the club began under Arrigo Sacchi, the former AC Milan and national team coach.
Sacchi stepped away at the end of last season but remains as an adviser. His work is carried on by Claudio Prandelli, who it is said has impressed Juventus. Now there are moves to install Sacchi as the next club chairman, in succession to Stefano Tanzi, the son of Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi who has been arrested in connection with billions of missing euros from Parmalat's accounts.
In the last days of 2003 there had been reports of possible purchasers, mainly other industrial concerns based in the "food valley", as we call the rich Parmesan province. Yet Parmacotto, Barilla and Prosciutto of Parma have have all denied the stories.
It would seem that even if Parma are saved, a dream has ended: Italian football's last happy island has disappeared.
Roberto Perrone is a football writer with Corriere della Sera.
(ARTICOLO APPARSO SUL QUOTIDIANO INGLESE DAILY TELEGRAPH)
29 Gennaio 2004 |
