The duel around the Football Federation is a possible solution in extremis, before the moment of counting. Machiavellian but practical solution to avoid a total short circuit.
Before the count and the moment of truth, provided that the night of the long knives does not write a different ending to the truce that Italian sport is negotiating to avoid the short circuit of a cascade of commissioners or a rejection of the main one, the FIGC is in the sights, which would send everything haywire starting from CONI. Giovanni Malagò dismissed and the Football Federation placed under commissionership but entrusted to Malagò himself with the mandate to call new elections within three months and, if possible, re-elect the current president this time with the blessed card that triggered all the problems.
It seems like a Kafkaesque story and, instead, it is just a subtle exercise in sports politics. Incomprehensible, perhaps, to the majority of enthusiasts but useful for breaking the deadlock by crystallizing the balance of power. Brief summary: Buonfiglio’s Coni needs to declare Malagò’s election illegitimate and, consequently, to place the FIGC under commissionership. A little out of conviction, a lot out of push given that the not even veiled threat is that, in the event of failure to intervene, Coni itself will be mothballed directly by the Government.
Buonfiglio, however, is not sure he has the numbers on his side. Not in the council which is split in two and where many support Malagò and not even in the national council which should ratify the possible green light. What happens if Buonfiglio loses in one of the two steps? That he would be the one to jump and not the other one, acknowledging that he does not have control over the world unless the Minister for Sport, Andrea Abodi, takes care of pulling the plug.
This is why, faced with the total balance in the count of friends and enemies and receiving a strong “No, thanks” from Serie A, Buonfiglio took the step first. The council is convened at lunchtime but will first meet Malagò to put on the table the solutions necessary to avoid the clash. And among these, the most accredited one is to hand over the role of commissioner to Malagò so that he can continue to work on the relaunch of the FIGC and in the meantime organize new elections, equipping himself with any membership card and rebuilding the consensus around his figure which has partly deteriorated due to the way in which he made the main choices in the scarce three months of his mandate.
Diabolical but extremely practical. Rumors say that the role was also offered to Lega Serie A’s number one, Ezio Maria Simonelli, but the harshness of the statement written on the eve of the count leaves little room for interpretation: “The Lega Calcio Serie A dissociates itself and distances itself from the apparent legal controversy of which it does not understand the legal foundations and political reasons. Giovanni Malagò, candidate primarily from Serie A, was elected by a wide margin and Serie A itself continues to show him complete support. While respecting the principles and the rules of the Federation and CONI, the Lega Calcio Serie A considers the administration to be completely inappropriate, also because it could lead to chaos in football, in light of the clear position expressed by UEFA, respect for the autonomy of Italian football is recommended”.
