Certain of pleasing many friends, we are publishing the text on which the speech at the shareholders' meeting of our @CozzolinoSalvo was based, given that in the press emphasis was given more than anything else to the responses of the Juventus managers to the questions to be lift him up.
Good morning gentlemen shareholders and good morning to you, Mr President.
I listened to your report, many beautiful words, but allow me a little distrust. You see, the undersigned here met Boniperti, Chiusano, Grande Stevens, then Cobolli Gigli, Blanc and finally Andrea Agnelli. I objectively believe that none of them liked me. Over time, if he stays in that chair, he will have the opportunity to understand why.
Having made this small premise, I would like the words recently pronounced by Florentino Perez, president of the undoubtedly most prestigious football club in the world, Real Madrid, to remain in the records of this Assembly.
"Football is going through an unprecedented institutional crisis. The situation is very serious. Either we react now or football will not survive. The main problem is that there are managers who act without thinking about the fans. European football does not belong to the president of UEFA, the Super League is more necessary than ever. The objective is to offer the best football and it is the clubs that must control their own destiny. They have gone so far as to say that we will leave the national championships, but this is false, because the Super League would be totally compatible with them and it will be a meritocratic competition".
"The new UEFA format is an unusual and absurd project. This model will further alienate the fans of our sport and especially the younger ones. This new format is a system that serves the interests of its managers, which does not take into account the needs of the players, of the fans and the players. It is a formula that puts an end to European football, it does not address the threat of other growing sports and other forms of entertainment offered to the public."
"The Super League was conceived to solve all these problems. I continue to trust in the justice of the European Union because UEFA has no right to a monopoly on football in the Europe of freedoms."
So, these are important words, and these are the words I would like to hear from the president of my company. And instead I had to settle for her, not only with generic and obvious reassurances on the return to sporting competitiveness, but also with a long series of ear-splitting declarations, which I quote verbatim below:
"... we as the Board of Directors believe we have the experience, competence and determination to defend Juventus in all competent forums, criminal, sporting and civil. We will do it with rigor and calmness, and without arrogance. We have always respected those who will have to judge us. But we want equal respect to discuss the reasons for our actions in the competent forums."
But while she offered her "calmness", we instead received arrogance from UEFA and the Football Federation, with blackmail and bribery in broad daylight, in sports newspapers. While she offered respect to Sports Justice, the latter gave and took away points at will, without any method, with the sole objective of throwing us out of European competitions. Juventus was brutalized on the altar of a score-settling between our former president and his son's first-time friend. Thrown out of football that counts on the basis of weak, specious accusations that we don't even know if they will make it to the criminal and civil hearings. Crippled by economic damage that we can estimate to be well over 100 million euros for the current season alone, but which could indirectly extend to future years as well. Humiliated by a plea deal that time is revealing to us in all its miserable cowardice. More than a plea bargain, it is a real blackmail, the secondary effects of which are starting to manifest themselves promptly, starting with the newfound submissiveness in dealing with the still open questions relating to the incredible profiteering on the 2006 championship and the related and sacrosanct request for damages.
After 17 years the scene repeats itself. Someone decides to throw us out of football and we are silent. And we calmly turn the other cheek. And all this happens with the blessing of the engineer. Elkann, president of the majority shareholder EXOR, according to which "Juventus is not the problem of Italian football. On the contrary: it is part of the solution."
Is the solution for Italian football to submit to UEFA's blackmail? Is the solution for Italian football to bury Juventus to obtain the organization of the European Championship 2032, also shared with a country that has always winked at terrorism? Is the solution for Italian football to make Juventus shareholders, small and large, put in the money after Juventus itself has invested at least 500 million REAL euros in the Italian football player market, helping to support the entire industry? Is the solution for Italian football to humiliate the fans and shareholders for the second time in a few years with this collaborative, dare I say double-agent, attitude alongside our executioners? These are the questions I would like you to answer.
I tell my fellow shareholders that we avoided Serie B only because we fans gave a clear signal through the cancellations of pay-TV subscriptions, of which I was proudly one of the promoters of the campaign. Without that civil and powerful form of protest, which shuffled the cards and exposed the weakness of the system, we would most likely have suffered another relegation.
This is why, dear President, we are tired. Tired of calmness. Tired of some inexplicable refereeing that we always suffer without saying a word. Tired of the family newspapers which are the most ferocious in attacking Juventus. Tired of the passivity towards some journalists who continue to be invited into the press room. Tired of always being able to predict in advance the script with which they will try to throw us out. Perhaps also tired of a majority shareholder who certainly puts in a little money every now and then, but who promptly proves inadequate when he has to defend the image of the Company and its centenary history.
Now, I understand that you and Dr. Scanavino are there a bit by chance, and are trying to faithfully carry out the directives that have been imposed on you, however this does not exempt you from having to also answer to the other shareholders and above all to the fans. And yet you have been in office for almost a year and you only seem busy putting your papers in order, incapable of expressing even the slightest form of enthusiasm for the role you hold.
Juventus, dear President, is something else. Juventus is a club that lives perpetually under attack. But the defense of these colors cannot be entrusted to the fans and a few willing bloggers. And yet that's exactly what happens. You locked in your ivory tower, new Badoglio marshals, bearers of armistices and compromises, always downward, with the football institutions. And we are out in the trenches, chewing bitterly, observing your icy indifference.
Today we are here to put in the money, and we will put in the money, as we have always put in it. But you, your face and your heart, when will you start wearing them?
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