Gravina and Spalletti must go: after the Euro flop, let’s not jeopardize the World Cup too. I wrote about their failings a year ago, naturally to deaf ears
Last July 1st, right after Italy’s disastrous Euro campaign, I denounced the shame of Gravina’s seven-year presidency marred by scandals and glaring failures, as well as the technical debacle of c.t.
(Translated into English by Grok)
If you have five minutes, read my article published on Substack on July 1st, the day after Switzerland’s 2-0 victory over Italy, which put an end to Italy’s woeful Euro campaign in Germany. Then think about yesterday’s Norway-Italy 3-0 and the eleven months that have passed with no one doing anything.
Gravina and Spalletti Must Go: We’re Heading Toward a Third World Cup Without Italy. Someone, Please, Step In
In 2021, Gravina raised his salary from €36,000 to €240,000 for his work and responsibility in managing Club Italia: he should be held accountable. As for the coach, his post-Switzerland remarks condemn him
PAOLO ZILIANI
July 1, 2024
Gravina and Spalletti must go: no ifs, no buts. With particular urgency for Gravina, who is responsible for a second consecutive, grave, and irreparable disaster (failure to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and the failed Euro 2024 campaign in Germany), and with equal inevitability for the coach, whose performance at Euro 2024 was so poor it warrants having his coaching license revoked.
Gravina is the Captain Schettino who, after steering the Italian football ship (once a battleship, now a wreck) from one disaster to another, from one shipwreck to the next, shows up at press conferences as innocent as a rose. With shameless audacity, he admits to being sorry, agrees that the next goal must be achieved “or it would be a disaster,” accepts all criticism but rejects calls for resignation: stepping aside in tough times, he says, is not part of his culture. A national hero, indeed.
Gravina says all these things (he said them after the farcical match against North Macedonia that excluded us from the 2022 World Cup, repeated them after Mancini’s mid-August escape to Saudi Arabia, and reiterated them yesterday, less than 24 hours after the Switzerland-Italy 2-0 catastrophe). The astonishing thing is that none of the journalists in the room raises a finger to object. Gravina admits that, yes, Italian football is going through a tough time, but it’s not his or Spalletti’s fault if the production of top talent is what it is: “In 60 days, a new Mbappé won’t emerge,” he says, already making excuses for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers. Which is true: just as a new Mbappé won’t emerge in Italy in 60 days, neither will one in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, or elsewhere. The real issue is that we wouldn’t need 60 days—or even a single day—to find a better federation president than him in Italy. For seven years, the football movement has tolerated an unworthy and inept executive hammering away at Italian football (the national team is just one side of the coin) without holding him accountable for his sporting and ethical failings.
Gravina is the president who has effectively legalized the illegality of the Italian football system. After the disgraceful amnesty of years of serious and repeated offenses by Juventus, every club and executive now knows they can commit any illegality because, as Gravina recently reiterated in a parliamentary hearing regarding the Juventus case, “plea bargaining is provided for in the sporting regulations; resorting to it is normal.” Gravina is the president who, instead of caring about upholding rules, prioritizes defending those who break them. He’s the president who, in agreement with the new coach, allows a serious offense like betting, in the case of a player like Fagioli, to result in a mere seven-month ban—conveniently short enough to have him fit and ready for Euro 2024. He’s the president who, again in agreement with the new coach, allows the shameful Acerbi-Juan Jesus racism case to be swept under the rug so the Inter defender could join the Euro squad in Germany. He’s the president who, with unparalleled nerve, appoints a former player with a tainted and tarnished past like Gigi Buffon as the national team’s delegation chief—ironically tasked, in his first role, with defending a player (Fagioli) banned for a sordid betting scandal. Stop the world, I want to get off!
Above all, Gravina is the president who, in April 2021, unilaterally decided to raise his FIGC president salary from €36,000 to €240,000 for his efforts and responsibility in leading “Club Italia,” i.e., the national team, and shaping its policies and strategies—a sevenfold increase. All this to see Italy fail to qualify for a World Cup for the second consecutive time, to see coach Mancini flee to Saudi Arabia mid-tenure, and to watch the new coach, hired by Gravina with yet another breach of rules (Spalletti still had a year left on his Napoli contract, which he left seeking a “sabbatical year”), lead the national team to a colossal collapse at the first major challenge of his tenure.
Spalletti. Sitting beside his mentor Gravina at the post-Switzerland-Italy press conference, he managed to do even more damage with his words than he had on the bench. “Ten matches were too few; I would have needed at least twenty,” Spalletti said. Yet, when he jumped on the runaway train left without a driver by Mancini, he knew exactly what he was signing up for. Why didn’t he say so to Gravina then? “Thanks for the offer,” he should have said, “but the time before the Euros in Germany is too short. Knowing myself, ten matches to prepare my team aren’t enough.” Was it really so hard to say? Yet the world is full of coaches who, mid-season, refuse to take over a team undergoing a managerial change. “Thanks, let’s talk at the end of the season,” they say. Correctly.
In ten months as Italy’s coach, Spalletti has managed to tarnish—both sportingly and morally—the positive image he had built during his last coaching stint, the victorious one at Napoli. His assent to the establishment’s efforts to salvage (for national team call-ups) two utterly indefensible players like Acerbi and Fagioli; a choice that karma swiftly turned into a double boomerang with Acerbi’s injury and Fagioli’s on-field flop; the farcical idea of summoning Italy’s great number 10s of the past—from Rivera to Totti, Baggio to Del Piero—only to make the current players feel even smaller and more inadequate, confirming what the coach thought (and thinks) of them; the equally absurd idea, during preparations for Switzerland-Italy, of asking players in advance—by a show of hands—who would be willing to take penalties, as if that were the coach’s main concern, clearly lacking confidence in his team’s abilities and chances. This negative attitude added fear to fear, disorientation to disorientation, resulting in very few hands raised. These things, along with others more technical in nature (notably, his unwavering trust in his Napoli protégé Di Lorenzo for all four matches, despite a downright dreadful performance), confirmed from the outset that Spalletti was navigating blindly, without a compass. With Captain Schettino-Gravina shielding him, the crash was tragic and inevitable.
Said without malice, without prejudice, and with utmost clarity: Gravina and Spalletti must go. It’s just, necessary, and urgent. Since they refuse to step down themselves, if we want to avoid Italy missing out on a third consecutive World Cup—a highly likely outcome at this point if an inept president like Gravina and a disoriented coach like Spalletti are left free to cause more damage—someone higher up must intervene to stop them from doing further harm.
If Sports Minister Abodi is listening, please, make a move. Take our advice: better one day as a lion than a hundred years as a mummy.
