It’s been a while since I wrote about my favourite Italian football club, so before I get to the point, I should probably recap on the past 10 months or so.
I wrote about my last trip to Florence, where Fiorentina’s 1-0 defeat to Lazio made it mathematically impossible for them to avoid the drop into Serie B. Their financial troubles, only partially remedied by the sale of Batistuta, Rui Costa and Toldo, meant that the club was only just allowed to compete in Serie A during 2001/02. But during the summer of 2002, the authorities stamped down on owner Vittorio Cecchi Gori’s woeful financial mismanagement, banning AC Fiorentina from competing in Serie B the following season.
By August, AC Fiorentina had ceased trading, and thanks to the last-minute actions of Diego Della Valle and his $8m investment, a new club, Fiorentina 1926 Florentia, was formed. Now, bear this next bit in mind… a number of influential Serie A club owners attempted to pressurise the Italian FA to place the new team in Serie B or C1, whereas the rules state that a new team should start from amateur level. In a sport where PR can make or break a career, this would have been ludicrous, especially as at least one plucky lower-league team would have had their promotion reversed. Eventually (and still slightly against the rules) the new club were placed in Serie C2, the lowest professional level.
Coming swiftly up to date, the now more snappily named Florentia Viola is doing rather well. Five points clear at the top of C2B (the midland subdivision), they look favourites for promotion to C1. However, once again, a number of powerful men are lobbying for direct promotion to Serie B.
This worries me. As a fan, I’d love to see Fiorentina (as they still are to most fans) sweeping up through the league and regaining their former grace. But this is surely not the way to do it. After a couple of nightmare seasons of unparalleled crowd violence, alleged refereeing inconsistency and small-time match-fixing, Italian football needs to be squeaky clean at every level. If a club is artificially hoisted through the divisions, purely because its forerunner was once great, who knows what little “favours” Juventus or AC Milan might be able to gain?
[Later edit: And as the Calciopoli scandal showed three years later, we didn't know the half of it!]
If the Florence club’s current rush of success ends in mid-table Serie B anonymity, so be it. As Rotherham, Man City and Watford have shown in England, there’s always another season.
I think it’s great that there are powerful people in Italian football who wish the best for Florentia Viola, but the club must use this influence with responsibility. They’re in a unique position, with the sort of voice that no other lower-league club has. I want to see FloVio raise the disproportionately low profile of lower-league football in Italy, not leave it behind in a puff of blue-chip smoke.
