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Coronavirus Chaos in Serie A (Ep. 45)
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome
Episode Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
to the Seria show!
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of The City Ah Show. It's probably going to be one of our shortest episodes because we don't really have much to talk about thanks to the Leg Ah. Nima,
Juventus vs Inter Match Controversy
00:00:28
Speaker
I know you have very strong feelings about this.
00:00:32
Speaker
I just can't explain it for the life of me. Real quick, okay, the only match of note, I think maybe, is Roma Cagliari, which was, if you're the neutral, pretty entertaining. But really, this entire match day, even the last few days, have been overshadowed by incompetence on top of incompetence, on top of incompetence. And I said it on the previous episode.
00:00:59
Speaker
Once you start effing with the calendar in the manner that they have, it makes everybody unhappy. I hate it. I assume people who aren't even in media hate it. It sucks. And the plan that they made to move
00:01:15
Speaker
That match between Juve and Unter to the middle of May was one of the most obscene, most neglectful decisions I think I've ever seen. Arrogant. Was there anybody who was happy with that? Nobody. It was arrogant. Yeah, well, we know one person, one set of fans and one team that was happy with that. We know that for a fact. Oh, no. But let's not beat around the bush. Let's stick to the facts. I mean, they want it. I mean, let's look at the timeline because I think we have to do that.
00:01:44
Speaker
when we talk about this thing. I mean on Monday 24th, Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th, the Corriere de la Sporte, the Corriere de la Serra, Republica, Tutto Sporte, Gazeta de la Sporte, all these outlets that are owned by a lot of interest, including the Aniele family, who have a majority of holdings taking the Gazeta and the Republica,
00:02:06
Speaker
They published and confirmed several times over for the past three days that Juventus did not wish to reimburse fans because it would cost them 5 million euros, which is an understandable decision. I mean, 5 million euros is quite a lot of money. You don't just hand that out. They did not want to reimburse fans for that because if the decision, which was most likely given the outbreak of the coronavirus to play this in front of behind closed doors,
00:02:35
Speaker
So on the Thursday, the Italian, they decide, the Italian government lets the Lega and the Italian Olympic Committee know that they cannot allow this game to be played behind. The choices they have is to either play behind closed doors or to postpone it.
00:03:02
Speaker
The decision that's communicated to everyone is that it's going to be played behind closed doors. Now, what's really interesting here is that an Italian economical news outlet called Afari Italiani on the 28th of February on the Friday, they let it know, they published a new interview with
00:03:24
Speaker
Kodakons, which is like a consumer advocacy group that says that if their president in fairness, Kodakons is full of imbeciles. All these all these outlets are full of imbeciles now.
Lega Serie A's Crisis Management
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna say this is Italy. I think this this week, this past three weeks is a festival of idiotic, idiotic people and imbeciles. So
00:03:47
Speaker
All he does is, oh, what they say is that Carlo Rienzi, the president of the Kodacon, says that if Juventus do not reimburse the consumers, they will sue. He goes on the record saying that. Then on the Saturday, lunchtime, 29th of February, out of the blue,
00:04:08
Speaker
The Serie A and their president, Dalpino, releases a statement lying, because this is an absolute lie, which was also, I'll get to how it was, saying that they decided that because of the government's decision, the government has told them that they cannot play these games. Juva, Inter, Milan, Genoa, Palma, Spal, Sasolo, Brescia, Odiness, Fiorentina, they cannot play these games because of the coronavirus outbreak. That's a blatant lie.
00:04:36
Speaker
The Minister of Sports, Spada Fora, was literally on the record as saying that, no, this is a decision. He told basically anyone who would listen that same day and before that this decision is not up to the government. This is entirely up to the Lega Seria and the Lega Calcio to decide that we gave them two choices either to play this game behind closed doors
00:05:00
Speaker
or to postpone this. Then Dalpino goes out and says that he has the entire league behind him, all the clubs behind him, which he didn't, another lie, as evidenced by the fact that every coach and director from for nine to ten different Serie A teams said that they had nothing contacted and that they felt that the Serie A had been falsified. That's their words, not mine.
00:05:28
Speaker
So naturally, what do you do? Then they decide to postpone everything and all hell breaks loose. And then we continue and rinse and repeat for the Inter Napoli and above all Juventus Milan, which was just for the Copa Italia game that was supposed to be played on Wednesday, on Tuesday. Sorry, yesterday, today, it's Wednesday when we're recording this.
00:05:52
Speaker
They announced that that game would have been played, and it was going to be played with spectators, and Juventus started selling tickets, as you would expect them to do. But only for 24 hours later, then the Italian government discovers that shit, this coronavirus thing is pretty lethal, and just closing down some places and not other places doesn't stop it from spreading, which is fantastic in and of its own, speaking of
00:06:19
Speaker
imbeciles and incompetence. So therefore, they just shut everything down today. Then they announced less than 24 hours after that that they're going to shut that that game is getting postponed. And today we find out that all sporting events are being postponed for 30 days because of the coronavirus. Jesus Christ. I mean, there is there is really no way to describe this cluster F
00:06:47
Speaker
of incompetence, the stupidity and I don't know what, I'm running out of adjectives to describe this nonsense because
00:06:56
Speaker
It's it's just they've they've turned I mean if we just focus it on the footballing part They could not have screwed this up worse if even if they wanted to in my opinion It's it's impossible to to just to embarrass yourself on a global stage this bad France Spain Switzerland all these other countries also are affected by the coronavirus None of them have made a spectacle of themselves in the way that the serial and lega culture have
00:07:23
Speaker
And this is, obviously, Inter were furious. Marotta went on every single media outlet in Italy to express how angry he was. Inter's president, who is a Chinese man, let's remember that China is the country that has been affected the hardest by this. His countrymen are dying and he feels he's being disrespected by this Dalpino guy who doesn't seem to give a shit about human life.
00:07:53
Speaker
And he goes, he loses it on Instagram and calls him a dark clown. And then, you know, the whole thing is spiraled out of control until today where the government just said, no, if the games are being played and they're being played behind closed doors, period. I mean, is that it? Yeah. This is because I've been following this closely and this is this is what's been happening and it's
00:08:21
Speaker
Incredible. I've never seen anything like this. Like this
Serie A's Mismanagement and Communication Issues
00:08:25
Speaker
is this is Italy from its worst side. Everything that's wrong with Italy and Italian football from its worst side was demonstrated since since Friday or since last Thursday. Chloe, before you weigh in, I have to do in fairness to the lega, it almost seems like whatever decision they made, there were certainly going to be some sort of
00:08:51
Speaker
controversy surrounding that. However, you could have had literally no clue about the seria. And if you were in charge of making the decision, what would any logical person do? They would open up a calendar, right? They would open it up. They would look at the months.
00:09:11
Speaker
And what Dalpino did was he picked literally the worst two-week stretch that was even remotely possible for the rest of the season. And he says, ah, there it is, guys. Let's do it there. I've resolved it. And the funny thing is that Inter Santoria, remember that game? Yeah, that has not yet been scheduled yet. They didn't even talk about it. No, it's like those fixtures have been forgotten.
00:09:40
Speaker
the first ones that were postponed. It's like, I mean, I had to try and explain this. There's a Liverpool podcast called the Anfield Wrap and they probably about once a month get me to speak for about 10 minutes on the biggest issues in Serie A as they sort of look round the European leagues. And I had to try and explain this situation to normal human beings who watch football outside of Italy.
00:10:10
Speaker
It was like, where do I start with this? I mean, you know, I think Fiorentina's new ownership with the fact that they are, well, they're Italian American, but they've spent a lot of their lives in America. And on Saturday,
00:10:29
Speaker
Fiorentina were on their way to their fixture with Udinese. Well, the team were already there, but the executives were on their way on Saturday morning for the game in Udinese on Saturday evening. Joe Borone found out through Twitter
00:10:48
Speaker
that they'd called all the games off. Nobody had thought to bother to tell him. And he's understandably annoyed because it's cost Fiorentina 60,000 euros to get their team all the way up to Udine for the hotel, et cetera, et cetera. And he's like, I actually got a text from the Fiorentina supporters club.
00:11:11
Speaker
with the announcement from Seria and that that when he said what time he got the message I actually got the message before him I mean right what I mean they've got a like all joking aside they've got a responsibility to the team owners to communicate this news properly I mean for God's sake
00:11:32
Speaker
I mean, the thing is, though, I mean, the way I see it is that this is what happens when you appoint incompetent, unqualified puppets and idiots to positions that are important and to jobs that are important, that they're not. Well, there's too many cooks in the kitchen, Nima. I mean, you have the government saying this, you have the legacy saying this. Well, that's not true because the government can suspend when it comes to public health, when it comes to public safety and health.
00:11:59
Speaker
They have an absolute mandate to shut everything down. FIFA doesn't allow governments to interfere into either football associations. If there isn't a public interest like a war or something like this, what they did was basically say, do what they were supposed to do and say, these are your choices, pick one.
00:12:19
Speaker
and they didn't pick one they pick one for two days and then the second one the day before the games and then just pissed everybody off and that is that is the issue here you know it's the problem I see it I don't have you know the way I see it is that
00:12:39
Speaker
first of all if it's if it's left to the lega and this is an important thing especially queen coming up to this part of the season where there's so many games and the games really matter we're talking playoff of the champions league cups leagues
00:12:51
Speaker
then they're all and also really let's not forget the relegation teams you know their their their entire survival and you know people people depend on this so what what was needed to be done was to have a meeting call and call an emergency meeting and talk with everyone not 24 hours before a kickoff just communicate like you're some sort of roman empire that roman emperor that no we're not playing we're playing it on the 13th removing the cup game to the 27th removing that over there and into santoria yeah we'll sort it out as we go along
00:13:20
Speaker
I mean, come on, what nonsense is this? I mean, the way I see it, you know, and I want to clarify this, that the thing about Juventus is that Juve's job, Andrea Angeli's job, is to look out for Juventus. That is literally his job. That's not the fact that he advanced Juve's interest is not the problem here. The problem is that the person in charge of looking out for all of Serie A's interest isn't doing his job.
00:13:49
Speaker
And that is what drove pretty much everybody crazy. Yeah, I don't really know what we can add beyond that. We can say now that they've they've decided to last weekend's postponed games are being played this weekend. And then this weekend's games are being played in an extra game that or an extra round of the Serie A that's being played in mid-May, if I've understood it correctly, between 12th and 14th of May.
00:14:15
Speaker
And the other games that have been suspended into Sampdoria, they didn't even talk about that again. So we'll see what happens there. I just hate the idea of trying to cram all of these matches in for May. And do people forget? I mean, we got the Euros this summer. I mean, the longer you extend this season,
00:14:38
Speaker
I mean that makes it a hazard for the players. This entire thing has been so badly mishandled.
00:14:49
Speaker
It's so difficult for me to even see where the way out for them is because, and the thing is too, and this is so Italian, when they make a stupid decision, they double down on said stupid decision. They don't just, you know, in life, and this is, you know, I laugh and I say this for Italians, but this is just for life in general. So much easier sometimes, and I know in this world of Twitter where if you admit you're wrong, you know, you get the tattoo on your forehead that you're an idiot, but
00:15:17
Speaker
Seriously, it is so much easier just to raise your hands and be like, guys, we got it wrong. Okay, let's fix this. Let's figure it out. But they don't do that. They doubled down. Darpino, he's fighting through the press with Marotta. It's just insane. It's like,
00:15:35
Speaker
I mean, how many stupid people does it take to realize that this is so wrong? And the thing is, I don't even know what the right decision is. I guess in all of this, I still don't know what the right answer is. I really don't. I think the right answer would have been to do what other countries have done.
00:15:51
Speaker
you know, to kind of understand that shutting down Veneto and turning that into, I don't know, some sort of futuristic dystopian Hollywood version. But they did. They shut it down. I mean, they basically had it was under panel. They had cops standing outside like, you know, it was weird, like a military police standing outside guarding people. You're not allowed to leave. And if you left, you were sent to prison or charge or whatever. I mean, they turned it into they turned everything into some sort of weird, like dystopian Hollywood movie.
00:16:21
Speaker
Well, that's true. But at the same time, they let the rest of the country free when the virus has an incubation period of 10 to 14 days, between 5 to 14 days, according to the World Health Organization, meaning that you could have the damn thing up until two weeks and not show any symptoms.
00:16:42
Speaker
so of course it was going to spread you know what i mean like why play that's why i mean like all the games should have been shut down because this is a new environment they don't need to pull anything off whatsoever just if there's a risk to public health just play the matches behind closed doors of course it's not an ideal situation but i mean you know this is an unprecedented matter and it's unprecedented times and
00:17:09
Speaker
I for one cannot believe that when a meeting was held today the most important meeting you can imagine that that you know in these times that we've never faced before people are talking about calling off the rest of the season which is just crazy so let's get the clubs together and let's have this important meeting only nine of them showed up out of 20
00:17:35
Speaker
Well, that's because the Serie A decided to communicate that they were going to cancel it late last night. I mean, these people couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. They were supposed to have an extra emergency meeting of the Liga Serie A with all 20 clubs, but after the Liga Calcio phoned around and asked what people's positions were to this meeting, to the new schedule that I mentioned before,
00:18:01
Speaker
then because eighteen teams were for it and two were against it, they just decided, you know what, everyone doesn't have to show up, you know, we're going to cancel that meeting, whoever wants to show up, we can have a roundtable discussion with the government. I mean... But now they've said that there's not enough, there wasn't enough teams in attendance to make a decision. Yeah, because it's not legally valid.
00:18:21
Speaker
Perhaps, like, perhaps they were expecting people to check Twitter, like, like Joe Baronum and find out that way, whether the meeting was on or not. But I think it's quite telling that the clubs that did attend are like the decent clubs. I mean, you know, it was, it was inter uvate Roma, Milan, Atalanta, Lazio, Sasuolo, Udinese, Fiorentina.
00:18:46
Speaker
You know, they're the clubs that you would expect to attend. I don't know. I mean, it's the thing is, as I said, you couldn't even, even if you wanted to, you couldn't create a bigger mess. Even if we, if the three of us sat down together and said, let's screw up the league as best we can in this situation, I think we'd fall short of what these people have just done.
00:19:07
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I mean, it is it's impressive. It's
Impact on Fans and Calls for Resignation
00:19:11
Speaker
incompetence. I mean, if there was like a Olympic Games of stupidity and incompetence, this this is this is a new world record. Like that's where we are. Oh, just another day. The thing that I laugh at is we talk about things on here that in England, they must think we're like from another galaxy.
00:19:34
Speaker
I mean, we discuss racist incidents in 2020. We discuss the coronavirus. I mean, yeah, yeah. Couldn't make it up. I mean, if it was England, the decision would be up to the Premier League. They would make the decision and that would be a non-story, only the fact that they were playing games behind closed doors. But that would be it. Can you imagine in England the Olympic Committee getting involved?
00:20:04
Speaker
Well, to be fair. We just made a podcast on the flu. The thing is, they could have handled this in such a better way, and they really didn't.
00:20:21
Speaker
The funniest thing of all this was that the unofficial reason given, because again, this is Italy, you have an official reason and then you have an unofficial reason. The unofficial reason that was being communicated that why move Juve Inter on Sunday was that it was being played at the same time as El Classico and it would have been to the detriment of the image of the country to play Juve Inter, one of the biggest games at an empty stadium whilst El Classico was going on in front of a packed Real Santiago Bernabeu.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, because this this crap show has been such a fantastic advertisement for this area. And the thing is, so if you haven't traveled from outside to go to a match,
00:21:07
Speaker
The city is notoriously bad for their scheduling. I mean, we all know, I mean, how many times have we probably run into it just from the media standpoint, whether they'll change the date of a match just a few days before. I cannot imagine if you had bought tickets for this weekend, just the personal hell you must be going through to get some sort of refund or even try and reschedule your travel plans.
00:21:33
Speaker
I mean, because I've written a lot in the past about travel guides and getting tickets and things, a lot of people, like you said, John, come to me and ask me things. And I actually decided to write about it in Forbes because a friend of mine had travelled all the way from Singapore to watch UVA Inter. And even when she arrived in the country, she didn't know what was going on.
00:21:57
Speaker
there's people that have tweeted me that I've got tickets and have booked flights or maybe not got tickets but have certainly booked flights and accommodation. They're coming from Australia to watch Serie A. I mean Serie A are lucky that people are still interested from other countries in this league after what how they behave and you know people are going to be
00:22:20
Speaker
so out of pocket and so disappointed. Somebody said that they planned a big trip with their family for their special birthday and it's all going to be ruined and it didn't need to be. It really didn't need to be. That fan, did you see that fan that traveled from Patagonia to watch Milan play and the game was cancelled? Okay, where the hell is that? I think that's in South America.
00:22:50
Speaker
He traveled something like ridiculous amount of, I think so, I'm not a geography expert, but I think it's in South America. And it was like thousands and thousands upon thousands of kilometers he's the guy who traveled to watch Milan play.
00:23:09
Speaker
And the game was cancelled just like that the day before. To be honest, the league don't deserve these fans. I mean, it really speaks about the quality of football that people still want to keep coming to Italy and watching these games because, you know, if it was for any other reason, they would have given up years ago. It's in Argentina. You travel from
00:23:31
Speaker
from the mountains of Argentina to Italy. And the day before the game, the game was canceled. Obviously, gotta give a shout out to Calabria, the Milan player who saw that and said that he would be sending him a signed Milan jersey together with the rest of the team. I think that's a friendly gesture. At least somebody's showing a bit of humanity and consideration and compassion towards people who travel from different continents to come and watch this team.
00:24:01
Speaker
I think after this, I honestly think that Delfino and the Lega Calce present has to resign. Everyone involved in this has to resign. They've literally showed that they're not fit to hold the offices they hold. They cannot
00:24:20
Speaker
they cannot function under the slightest bit of pressure and stress. Instead, they just make everything 100 times worse and throw everything. It's like they take the cutlery drawer and empty it on their own heads like that. And every time they're in any trouble. And it's just a clown show. And when we're talking about other leagues, the Premier League, La Liga, this league is supposed to compete with them. Are you kidding me?
00:24:44
Speaker
Like, no. This would never happen in any other country in Europe, in the top leagues. Anything close to the mess that we've witnessed for the past six days occur. Not even close.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree. It's been nothing short of an absolute embarrassment and once again, we just... It's just becoming... Yeah, I mean the obvious downfalls of the league are so apparent when you have
00:25:15
Speaker
You have dumb and dumber running it. It's just, it will really hurt the most. We're really just stinks from the head. We're really exactly. And what really, really hurts me the most is that this is the first time in almost I don't know how long we have such an interesting, you know, the level of football is actually really good.
00:25:33
Speaker
The Italian teams are really good. You have a three way horse for the title. You have a you have a relegation battle and some really good teams. It's a really interesting league. Everyone was following it. And then they just decide to to press the self self destruct button. Not once, not twice, but continuously. Ninety nine million times over the past five days. It's just embarrassing. And it's like, you know, John, as you always say on the show, these people just can't help getting out of their own way.
00:26:03
Speaker
It's incredible. All right. Well, next time you hear our voices, hopefully we're discussing matches and not the flu. It's seriously nothing short of amazing.
Closing Remarks and Future Hopes
00:26:16
Speaker
It's like every season we get something new. You can't help. You can't shake your head because it's like.
00:26:24
Speaker
Once you thought you've seen it all, you're like, oh, apparently we haven't. Oh, okay. All right. Well, everybody, thanks for listening on to this, to this half hour discussion on the flu. Stop calling it the flu. Hey.
00:26:40
Speaker
It's the flu. It's not the flu, John. It's a worse version of the flu. And I say that to somebody with the 95-year-old grandmother in Veneto at the moment who's hunkered down, probably watching, I don't know, terrible Italian daytime TV at the moment. Oh, yeah. OK, everyone. Well, we'll be back next time. Hopefully, we're discussing football at that point. So thank you, as always, for listening. And until then, bye-bye.