Italy flop: Gravina gives up and retorts to furious Azzurri sportsmen. Election date set
FIGC president Gabriele Gravina announced his resignation during an extraordinary council meeting convened after the Italian national team’s debacle in Bosnia. Elections for the presidency will be called for June 22. The farewell was announced by the federal president during the summit with the presidents of the federal council components. Present at the meeting were the No. 1s of Serie A, B, Lega Pro, LND, AIC and AIAC, respectively Ezio Maria Simonelli, Paolo Bedin, Matteo Marani, Giancarlo Abete, Umberto Calcagno and Renzo Ulivieri after Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup, the third consecutive and the second under Gravina’s management.
Gravina “thanked the components for renewing, in public and private form, the closeness and support to his person and informed the presidents that he willingly made himself available to speak at a hearing next April 8 (11 a.m.) in VIl Culture, Science and Education Commission of the Chamber of Deputies to report on the state of health of Italian soccer.”
The federal president at that hearing will present “in the most comprehensive and exhaustive manner possible a report on the strengths and weaknesses of the movement, also touching on some of the issues already addressed in the press conference held after the national team’s match played in Zenica last Tuesday, March 31.”
Gravina said he regretted the interpretation of his words on the difference between amateur and professional sports, expressed after the Bosnia-Italy match in Zenica. So many blue champions had reacted stymied. “His words were not meant to be offensive to any sporting discipline, but were a reference to the different internal rules and regulations, from the presence in the governance of some federations of leagues with their autonomies, and external, with reference to the corporate nature of professional football clubs that have to be subject to different national and international legislation than amateur clubs,” reads the FIGC statement.
