Pro Patria give an ultimatum: “One week, then everybody goes home”

One more week, and then it will be too late. This is the latest ultimatum, in the unfortunate season of the Pro Patria team, to come from Raffaele Novelli, who, during the training session planned for Tuesday afternoon, called a press conference, at which he appeared, accompanied by the team captain Domenico Cristiani and by Gianluca Zanetti. The coach explained, “This morning, the lads were really demoralised, they’d have been happier at a funeral. Under these conditions, I decided not to force them to train; some might even have hurt themselves.”

After the collapse of the consortium that should have saved the team, the situation is becoming increasingly precarious: Novelli said, “The time for talking is over. Now we have to act. It makes you want to give up and go home, many were thinking of doing so today, but in the end, we decided to wait one more week, even though, on Sunday, some of us might not be there in Trezzo d’Adda. We can’t afford the expenses any more. Some of us are paying €700 rent out of our own pockets, and others had put away as much as €6000, but have got nothing left. And if we don’t pay the rent for March, we’ll be thrown out of our houses. Then, the only solution will be to go back and live with our parents.”

The possibility of a potential buyer coming into the company has gone, and the players are only asking to have their expenses refunded. “We don’t expect there to be a transfer of property, to avoid the situation of two seasons ago,” the Pro Patria coach explained. “We don’t want our salaries for the last few months, but the money we need to keep going. We are appealing to businessmen, to the political parties, to anybody that wants to save us, even without making their donations public; the quiet donations are the most welcome. All we’d need is a house owner who can make his flat available, or a pharmacist who’s a soccer fan, who can guarantee us the supply of medicines. If we can’t find them, we’ll go home. It does no good to our personal dignity always to have to ask for something. I don’t want this to sound like blackmail, but we really can’t go on.”

Despite this depressing situation, Novelli has left a door open to hope. “The car is out of petrol and has come to a halt, but we can always push it forward.” One of the hypotheses expressed by the coach is the return of the former sports director, Carlo Regalia (“We know that he left only because he didn’t want to get involved in a situation that wasn’t clear; we need his experience and his contacts.”); another is the involvement of potential sponsors, and even the organisation of a friendly match with a prestigious opponent, like Milan, or Inter, to collect funds for the survival of the company. If something changes over the next seven days, the team will do everything it can, Novelli promised. “We all want to get to the end, and win this championship. Winning the First Division would make the company more tempting for a future buyer, and would help us to save soccer in Busto.” This is more a hope than a prediction, but Pro Patria have not many cards left to play.