by Raffaele Vitali
PESARO – Hours pass, the disappointment does not diminish, but awareness increases: Victoria Libertas Pesaro will start again from the A2. As?
The first step is the definition of governance. The consortium will have to choose a new president from within, after the irrevocable resignation given months ago by Ario Costa. For the former champions pivot it was an ungenerous end to his career, at least in Pesaro. He has given the president a lot in recent years, including his health. And he did it by trying to give a dream every year, that of Serie A, to a club that has almost always built the team with one of the lowest budgets.
In the face of obvious errors this season, it is not a detail that whoever arrives finds a healthy balance sheet. Everything will be done quickly, but it would have been useful to also think about the type of governance: that is, a president with money or a representative president of an even more solid consortium in which the shares grow closer to 100 thousand euros.
The budget is the second issue that will need to be planned quickly. Because the A2 is a fun and complex championship which, if you want to stay at the top of the group, you have to face with three million euros. Practically as much as spent this season in Serie A. This is the truth. Because on the bottom floor the Italians truly become a precious commodity and not a filler and we have to spend on the Americans, because they are fewer and must make a difference. Not like Ford Bluiett, to name two of the season’s flops.
Third step, the renewal with Beretta. Sponsorship is a non-secondary aspect. The confirmation of the entrepreneur with his Carpegna Prosciutto would be a sprinkle in the middle of the bitter dish of relegation. It won’t be easy, he already wanted to leave last year, but he could be encouraged by the fact that leaving after relegation wouldn’t be a great marketing move.
Fourth point, the definition of fixed points. Andrea Cinciarini is the man to start from again, if it is true that he strongly wanted to return to Pesaro after the years traveling around Italy and the experience in Spain. in A2 she could play the role of hen, as well as protagonist given that if she plays twenty minutes she has no equal, for the talented under 19s, fresh from bronze, of the VL coached by Giovanni Luminati who deserve a deputy role in A2. Maretto already has everything to be a protagonist downstairs, others can grow.
Fifth point, programming. We will need clarity, even dialectical clarity, towards the public. Saying ‘let’s go back straight away’ will sound like a joke. The A2 is complicated. A strategy is needed, probably three-yearly, during which to make even a championship that may seem to have less media attention, but which is rewarded by the numbers of the public and income from sponsors, attractive to sponsors and consortium members.
If there is one thing that has shown its weakness in recent years, it is that people joined the consortium more out of friendship and a sense of duty than out of conviction. We need to give something to those who invest in VL, show the sporting and social value of the choice, make it truly become a place for matching and business. This would allow us to include those companies that do not appear to be first class, but which in reality represent the solid entrepreneurial fabric of Pesaro and 100 thousand euros will get them without problems. Otherwise someone approaches, maybe stays for a year or two and then leaves. If Pistoia, not Milan, is a national sponsor, why can’t the square succeed with one of the finest audiences in Italy?
Strategy, marketing, new management prepared to face the new challenges of sport and of the A2 above all: there is time, but it must not be wasted (ph CiamilloCastoria).
