Cesena wins everywhere… or almost. He wins with the first team, wins with the Primavera and comes close to success, i.e. promotion, with the women’s team. Yes, because by now even the most distracted fans have noticed it, this year the Juventus girls are giving us an exciting duel at the top, fighting – with weapons that are not at all equal from an economic point of view – for promotion to the top flight. What would it take, then, to make the big leap on a permanent basis?
Only one little horse. It hurts a little to say this but sometimes the women’s team is still considered as Asd Castelvecchio, i.e. a separate entity from Cesena FC. On balance it is – a real merger has been talked about for years and next year always seems like the good one – but the budgets are separate and administratively the two realities simply coexist side by side due to an imposition of the Federation. At the moment there are synergies – same graphics on social media – even if Cesena FC’s marketing often “forgets” about the feminine as on the occasion of the recent match played by the girls at the Orogel Stadium Dino Manuzzi. It didn’t escape anyone’s notice how the men’s social networks promptly relaunched the news of the women’s Italian Cup final at the Cesena stadium while a few days earlier they had not relaunched the event dedicated to their girls. These are small things, certainly, but indicative of a certain distrust between the two realities.
Now we need, without mincing words, something more than a synergy: a corporate merger, obviously with the masculine incorporating the feminine until it becomes one. Even if in summer 2022, in fact, Massimo Agostini had a frank exchange with the women’s managers – something about the iron will of the Americans to seek victory in every area and the next Copernican change that would affect every black and white area – little or nothing has changed since then.
The Cesena women’s team, after a painful salvation two years ago, is continually improving and always increasing its objectives. Of course it is difficult to compete when, including bonuses, your best player earns more or less half of any Chievo women’s bench per month, recently defeated 4-3 by the Bianconeri girls. Coach Alain Conte is performing a true sporting miracle to bridge the gap with the others but in the long run this modus operandi is not sustainable.
A merger with the masculine would necessarily lead to greater investments in the feminine. We’re not talking about crazy figures: with just 1% of the budget that the Aiello club plans to make available for the 2024/25 men’s Serie B, the women’s managers could set up a team capable of aiming for promotion to Serie A and also to save themselves the following year. Currently from the national B to the football school – 8 categories of girls in total – it costs the former Castelvecchio something like 100 thousand euros per year. A double budget would allow us to aim for Serie A with more conviction.
In all of this it must obviously be taken into account that a merger with the masculine would also considerably reduce the autonomy of the current management, from president Magnani to director Sanna. However, it is a necessary sacrifice in the name of the common good: of the girls and above all of Little horse which, regardless of the corporate structure, takes to the field weekly in both the men’s and women’s shirts. And that must be honored to the fullest, always.
