Trouble and Protest in Gallipoli

By: Francesco | February 9th, 2010

gallipoli_calcio

This summer the tiny club Gallipoli Calcio, founded in 1999, achieved a historic promotion to Serie B. The Pugliese club, managed by former Roma and Italy midfielder Giuseppe Giannini, weren’t expected to do much this season, but have been a surprise, playing well and currently sitting above the relegation zone with 30 points. The club’s stadium is too small for Serie B standards so they play in Lecce’s Via Del Mare stadium (Gallipoli is a city in the province of Lecce).

This summer, oil baron Vincenzo Barba, who owned the club, wanted to sell. He said he couldn’t take the financial costs of running a football club anymore and would pay the fee to register Gallipoli for the Serie B season and then look for new owners. The club was finally sold in early August to an Udine-based entrepreneur Daniele D’Odorico. However, it seems D’Odorico can’t handle the financial costs either. Most players haven’t been paid their salaries since October, while some haven’t received anything since August. The club doesn’t even have enough money to provide enough training equipment for every player.

On the field, Gallipoli haven’t been hit psychologically by the lack of pay, because they have been playing pretty well, and the players are showing their president that they deserve to be paid. In yesterday’s Monday night encounter with Grosseto (a 2-2 draw), the players decided to stage a protest. When the referee blew the whistle to start the game, the players all stood still and turned towards the section president D’Odorico was sitting in. This lasted 40 seconds, and Grosseto decided not to take advantage, letting the players stage their protest. Gallipoli went on to take a 2 goal lead, with players displaying t-shirts that said “Do you understand?” directed towards the president. Giannini was sent off for touching the referee while protesting a decision and had to go sit in the stands.

While he was in the stands, Giannini got into a verbal war with president D’Odorico and there may have even been some punches thrown. Giannini resigned and blamed everything on the lack of salaries being paid. D’Odorico said in a press conference that Giannini lacks respect and is arrogant and can’t handle the responsibility and he was happy he resigned. However, the players stood by Giannini, saying they wanted him to stay.

Today, a meeting was held between D’Odorico, Giannini, and a group of players to resolve the situation and it seems that now Giannini will stay on. The club released an official statement saying that they will forget everything and continue as they were on the road to avoiding relegation.

Here’s the video of the protest: