A dance through time, from the past to the future. And the present to be lived as if it were a gift: «When we bought Genoa, the club was living a nightmare. He was close to liquidation with 70 million euros in labor costs, four paid coaches and a further 20/25 million in additional costs between agents and other expenses.” The picture of the previous situation is traced by Andres Blazquez, CEO of Genoa, on the English podcast “The Debrief”: «Serie B also depended in part on our mistakes, so we carefully prepared a team capable of immediately returning to Serie A by finding help in the city sponsors and in the fans. We now have the third team in the league in terms of points to wages, the highest attendance at the stadium (98% in every match) and recorded the highest demand for tickets in the history of the city. From next year we want the club to be sustainable.”
And speaking of the future, Blazquez is clear: «In Italy it is difficult to enter the top 10 because there is a large budget differential between teams, but from next year we want to compete for Europe and enter within two years. During this season I have never put salvation as an objective because to the boys, to the coach and to those around me, from the secretary of Villa Rostan to our boss (Wander, ed), I said to think high and not low. We can always do better, be ambitious and be in the running for Europe. Liverpool’s triumph? In the future we want to experience more nights like this. Genoa is ambitious and lives in an ambitious city, we are striving to bring the club back to the heights of its rich history.”
To get there, however, we need to do well in the present and cultivate talent at home by exploiting the potential of the youth sector: «In Italian professional football, Genoa’s youth system is the best in the process of transforming young players into professionals. Structures and personnel were lacking, by improving them we want to maintain high competitiveness.” Blazquez sheds light on the advantages that Genoa derives from coexisting with other European clubs belonging to the same parent company: «First of all, the scouting and technical staff is of high quality. We are also strengthening the commercial staff, but the times are necessarily longer. And then the advantage is the “data team” (the data and statistics team, ed): when I’m looking for a footballer I ask Ottolini, then we turn to theirs to find out the data we have. Not having reports on each player it becomes important to have a common basis for sharing. So, for example, Seydou Fini ended up on loan at Standard Liège, a top-talented winger – Blazquez repeats – who found the ideal environment to grow in Belgium.”
The Spanish CEO addresses Genoa’s transfer issues, starting from the sale of Radu Dragusin for 26 million euros, in addition to 5 million bonuses: «We didn’t want to sell him in January, and he didn’t want to leave because he had made a commitment to the team . He asked us to stay until the end of the month, but the pressure from Bayern Munich and Tottenham was too much. Bayern’s offer was significantly higher, but despite knowing that our financial situation was serious we left the final choice to him, so he gave his word to Tottenham. In compliance with some corporate parameters, we have chosen a collaborative approach with our players to give them a happy life and a good career.”
Will this be the case for Gudmundsson too? «I have a close, almost familial relationship with him: Albert explained to us the priorities of his life. Genoa will not impose anything on anyone. The final agreement, of transfer as well as permanence, will have to satisfy the parties and balance what Albert wants and needs with what we want and need. We significantly increased his salary to make Genoa a real option for his future: to date, much will depend on his personal objectives. He identifies with Genoa and the city of Genoa, in fact he is one of the most loved by the rossoblù fans – explains CEO Blazquez – In January we rejected an offer from Fiorentina; in recent weeks we have received interest from three clubs from the major European leagues for Gudmundsson, and not only that.”
Finally, the Everton affair which has been dragging on for several months: «Buying the club would crystallize the relationships already started with the Premier League: we sold Dragusin to Tottenham, I know Todd Boehly (current owner and president of Chelsea, ed) for over twenty years, he was my boss for six years. I consider him one of the most intelligent people he knows, don’t judge him by appearance – warns Blazquez – give him time because together with Pochettino he will build a great Chelsea.”
Tags: Genoa living nightmare Europe years
