February 27 – This weekend’s Serie A games will kick off 15 minutes late as the players show solidarity with financially-stricken Parma. Twice former winners of the old UEFA Cup but currently bottom of the league, Parma took the dramatic step of calling off last Sunday’s league game against Udinese. Players and staff have not been paid all season and stewarding costs were unable to be met to stage the fixture.
The club asked to play behind closed doors but the Italian Football Federation ordered a postponement. Parma have changed hands twice in two months but are in danger of not even finishing the season. Giampietro Manenti, the club’s latest president, says this Sunday’s game at Genoa will go ahead and that he is certain transport can be provided for the players.
Team captain Alessandro Lucarelli says the cash crisis is so bad that Parma players are even having to do their own laundry. “From tomorrow onwards there will no more laundry service, we will take our kit home to wash,” he was quoted as telling Italian media.
Parma finished sixth last season under the guidance of former Italy midfielder Roberto Donadoni to secure European qualification for the first time since 2007. But they were prevented from competing in the Europa League for not meeting UEFA’s club licensing criteria because of unpaid bills.
Ex-Parma striker Alessandro Melli, now the club’s general manager, told BBC World Service: “In these years, and especially in the last year, I’ve always thought Parma was like the Titanic.
“There were people who believed they were travelling first class and then other people who were doing all the hard, dirty work without being paid. I’ve always thought that just like the famous tragedy and in the movie, sooner or later an iceberg would come and hit us. And the problems we had with the UEFA licensing last year, that excluded us from the Europa League, was precisely that iceberg, the beginning of the end.”
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