Pisa: From almost playing in Serie A last season to playing in Serie D next season

By: Francesco | July 10th, 2009

Bad news for Pisa. The Tuscan club today announced that they do not have the necessary funds to register for the 2009-2010 season and instead of playing in the Lega Pro First Division (Serie C1) next season, they will have to start at the amateur level in Serie D. Pisa is a popular club with a die-hard fan base, and last played in Serie A in 1990. They spent the majority of the 90’s and 2000’s in Serie C, but finally made a long awaited return to Serie B for the 2007-2008 season. That year, led by Giampiero Ventura (now Bari manager) and the awesome attacking trio of Alessio Cerci, Vitali Kutuzov, and Jose Ignacio Castillo, the Nerazzurri surprised everyone and were even top of the table for some part of the season. However towards the end they fell off form and finished in a promotion play-off spot, where they lost the semi-final to Lecce. They were so close to obtaining a historic return to Serie A for the 2008-2009 season.

Pisa started this season looking to surprise again, but the club’s financial problems and the loss of their key attacking trio were too much and Pisa fell down the table into relegation trouble. Pisa ended the season relegated to Lega Pro and their fans were extremely angry. Owner Luca Pomponi was blamed by the fans for the relegation and on June 9th he announced he didn’t have the funds to pay off Pisa’s debt plus pay the registration fee. From that day forward Pomponi looked everywhere for potential investors to come and help out the club, but nobody stepped forward. Today was their last day to come up with the money, and there was no luck. Pomponi needed around 7,600,000 million euro to save the club, and he couldn’t come up with it. So now the club went bankrupt (for the second time, they had gone bankrupt in 1994) and will have to start all over in Serie D under a new name. All the players will be released from their contracts. Tough break for Pisa fans, who almost tasted Serie A and now have to suffer in Serie D.