“CALCIO CATANIA” FOOTBALL CLUB DECLARES BANKRUPTCY

Founded in 1908 in Sicily, Calcio Catania football club seems to be on the verge of real, but not fictitious bankruptcy. An application for recognition of insolvency has already been submitted to the court, it remains only to wait for May 25, when the court hearings in the case will take place. The reason for the bankruptcy was overwhelming debts of € 15 million and the inability to restructure the debt. It seems that the current administration of the sports club might lose their jobs as soon as the new managers are appointed by the court.

Red-and-blue, as the Italians call them, they were recently fighting in C Series. After 30 football matches, the club confidently occupied the sixth line of the standings. But now the difficult times began for the "elephants" (Italian: Gli elefanti - another name of the Catania club). Will the bankruptcy proceedings bring a revival of the club, or the rivals from another Sicilian club Palermo will be left in the splendid isolation?

We should recall that the best season of the last decade was 2012-2013, when the club won the eighth place in A Series. But after that the leaders of the team Alejandro Gomez and Francesco Lodi left it, and the next season was a failure.

A little later, a leapfrog with the change of the coaching team resulted in judicial accusations of the match-fixing.

As a result, the status of the club was lowered to the status of a third league, and it was forbidden for the former president (and the part-time owner of the club) to be engaged in any football activity for five years.

Despite the attempt, made by Antonino Pulvirenti to bribe the rivals has failed, the Sicilian methods of bribing the owners of the other teams (Varese, Trapani, Ternana and others) for € 100 thousand each made the history of football. Even the UEFA Secretary General Gianni Infantino had to take part in the trial. However, the experts say that the bookmakers guessed the illegal deal when they saw the abnormally high bets that were placed on the victory of Catania. There were rumours that Pulvirenti was trying to return half a million euros, betting on his own team during the match-fixing.

A number of experts suggested that the leader of the "elephants" simply decided to remove the leaders of the Sicilian mafia. As a result, the club ended up in C Series with the numerous fines (€ 150 thousand) and scandals.

Last November, the club’s ultra-group beat the team leader Pietro Lo Monaco. The day before the accident, he announced that he was resigning. Getting known about the attack, the players of the club refused to play in the upcoming game.

The difficult financial condition of the club was obvious at the end of last year. Then the local media reported that ten most highly paid players of the club received a warning that there was no money for them, and they should look for the new teams. The salaries of the remaining players have been reduced.

It is curious that Antonino Pulvirenti, demoted for trying to bribe the rival team, still remains the owner of the club.

The experts note that the companies under his leadership experienced bankruptcies more than once, which was subsequently recognized by the courts as fraudulent.

Whether the similar story will be repeated with the Calcio Catania club or should we expect a thorough restructuring, will become clear a little later.