"Neither Trieste, nor Cremona": Virtus Roma s'inalbera on the "satellite" issue;

The message is clear and sharp. “Virtus Roma will never become a satellite club of either Trieste or Cremona. Some statements have left me perplexed and I want to clarify the situation immediately to those who think they are coming to Rome with agreements already decided. Everyone will follow their own path, but Virtus Roma will always maintain its own identity.” The president of the Capitoline club, Massimiliano Pasqualini, was peremptory.

“This club represents much more than just a basketball team: it is part of the city’s history and has proudly carried the name of Rome on the Italian parquet floors for over sixty years. We are not a temporary project, but a serious reality, built to last over time and to give continuity to the city and its fans,” he added.

Pasqualini’s words come in a particularly agitated context for Roman and national basketball. What had sparked the controversy were some statements by Valerio Bianchini–a legend of the Capitoline bench, with whom he won the Scudetto in 1982-83 and the Champions Cup the following season–who had hoped for a promotion of Virtus Roma 1960 to make it “a development team where he would send players to mature for a year.” Phrases that did not please either the management or the historical Virtussino fans, who strongly reject any hypothesis of an ancillary role in the Italian basketball scene.

On the corporate front, Pasqualini has already anticipated the club’s future moves: “We are about to announce the entry of an important foreign partner and a project that wants to bring Virtus back to Serie A soon, where it belongs. The rest is not sport, but buying and selling far from the tradition and spirit of belonging that we are trying to revive in Rome.” A clear signal of how the club intends to build its future in full autonomy, without depending on the dynamics related to sports title transfers that are redrawing the map of Italian basketball.