By Mark Baber
July 28 – Parma Calcio 1913, a new club backed by pasta maker Guido Barilla with ex-coach Nevio Scala (pictured) as president, has been given the go-ahead by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) to compete in Italy’s Serie D following the bankruptcy of the old club.
Parma, which went bankrupt in March, had a glorious history including winning two UEFA Cups, the European Super Cup, European Cup Winners’ Cup, three Coppa Italias and an Italian Super Cup between 1992 and 2002. However the club fell on bad times after the collapse of the Parmalat food and dairy firm which had bankrolled the club.
Due to financial mismanagement the club’s debts amounted to more than €200 million ($220 million) when it collapsed, a sum which put off potential saviours of the club.
The new club has been named Parma Calcio 1913 after the founding year of the original team, and was chosen in preference to a rival bid led by Giuseppe Corrado, who runs a national cinema chain
The Barilla group is the world’s leading pasta maker with 40-45% of the Italian market and 25% of the US market as well as being a leading seller of bakery products in Italy and, through its acquisition of the Swedish company Wasa, the world’s leading producer of flatbread.
Guido Barilla courted controversy when he told La Zanzara Radio24 in 2013 that, “I would not do a commercial with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect toward homosexuals – who have the right to do whatever they want without disturbing others – but because I don’t agree with them, and I think we want to talk to traditional families.”
For Carlo Tavecchio’s FIGC, of course, a history of racist or homophobic comments is not regarded as a particular obstacle.
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