MATERA – Matera, vandals in action: the basketball hoops at the municipal pitch were damaged. The municipal administration of Matera, with the mayor Domenico Bennardi and the sports councilor Antonio Materdomini, expresses indignation and regret for the serious act of vandalism that occurred in the municipal basketball court in Piazza degli Olmi, where unknown persons tore up the basketball baskets effectively preventing the many kids who spend their free time there on summer days from using the structure.
A very serious gesture, because it prevents young people from socializing and nurturing the healthy culture of sport in the city of the Sassi. Spaces to be protected in every way, certainly not to be inhibited with acts of incivility like this.
«It’s always important to talk to kids, rather than give in to such gestures by offering bad examples. – comments Bennardi – We will certainly put the baskets back together, but it is good to remember that those are places for socialization and healthy sporting activity. So we will try to prevent these actions from happening again, as has unfortunately already happened in the recent past.”
Yesterday (Friday) councilor Materdomini was alerted by representatives of the Italian Union of Sport for All (Uisp), which has its own headquarters there and this evening will host a flashmob of condemnation and awareness, so that no one can carry out acts of incivility, damaging moreover, public property.
Councilor Materdomini is harsh: «I am truly furious at this infamous and vile gesture – he comments – on the part of those who, most likely dissatisfied with their lives, displaying such a low level of intelligence, can only express themselves in this way. Dismantling the irons and nets of the basketball hoops in the Piazza degli Olmi playground will have been a source of satisfaction – Materdomini remarks – for me, having done something like this shows, however, that he is a perfect idiot. After the prompt intervention of the local police, we have already started the procedures on Friday (the day the incident occurred) to try to track down the culprit via surveillance cameras, and I sincerely hope he can be identified and punished as soon as possible. That basketball court, which we named after a young athlete from Matera who recently passed away, will return to being a place of aggregation, joy, sport and entertainment for our kids – concludes the councilor – indeed with the expression of interest in the assignment of the courts of the neighbourhood, which we will publish as soon as the offices have completed all the procedures, we will enhance it even more as Uisp did within Piazza degli Olmi, creating a place of aggregation, sport and urban redevelopment”.
