Parliament joins the postmortem
Italy’s latest national team disaster did not stay confined to the pitch. It made its way into the Chamber of Deputies, where the opening of the sitting turned into a debate about what one lawmaker called the “failure of Italian football.”
Salvatore Caiata of Fratelli d’Italia asked for a briefing from Sports Minister Andrea Abodi. His target was clear enough. He said the country’s football system had “stolen a dream from our young people” and argued that “the 20-year-old generations have never watched a World Cup match, the ‘magical nights.’”
The Lega went further, calling for a “total reform of football,” which it described as belonging to fans rather than the president of the FIGC. Deputy Andrea Crippa proposed bringing back a cap of five non-EU players on the field and making clubs field Italian youngsters from their youth academies among the starters.
“If in these years nothing concrete has been done, the fault also lies with Gabriele Gravina, a disaster for football,” Crippa said. The criticism landed with the subtlety of a misplaced tackle.
Opposition lawmakers push back, but not on the diagnosis
Not everyone in the chamber accepted the political framing, even if few seemed eager to defend the current state of affairs.
Marco Grimaldi of Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra said his group wanted to distance itself from Caiata’s request.
“We do not agree with this narrative,” he said. “Feel free to summon Abodi, ask for Gravina’s head, but do not absolve yourselves of the responsibilities you have.”
Mauro Berruto of the Democratic Party said the focus should be on understanding “the reasons that led to the abyss of Italian football.” In his view, asking for Gravina’s resignation was not the main issue.
“Gravina’s resignation should not be demanded, it should be an act of institutional dignity,” he said. He added that building a national team requires a league attractive enough to bring in foreign players who raise the level, and that this had not happened. Berruto said he would like to hear Abodi on “the reasons” for the collapse and on “the corrective measures to reverse the trend.”
Zoff: three failures in a row are not bad luck
The political debate came alongside a blunt assessment from one of Italian football’s most respected figures. Dino Zoff, the former national team coach and 1982 World Cup winner, told ANSA by phone that Italy’s absence was no longer something that could be written off as misfortune.
“The mood is like that of someone who played yesterday. Unfortunately, we are out. It is a disgrace for Italian football,” he said.
“It is hard to think of bad luck after not qualifying three times. That means there is something wrong.”
Zoff said it was not for him to discuss whether there should be resignations inside the FIGC. He also said he still enjoys watching the national team, even if there is less pleasure in doing so now. Asked whether he followed Formula 1 star Kimi Antonelli or the national team with more interest, he replied that he watches both, because he is “a man of sport” who follows everything.
Irma Testa takes aim at Gravina’s idea of professionalism
The criticism did not stop with football insiders and politicians. Irma Testa, the first Italian woman boxer to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in Tokyo, responded on Instagram to comments from Gravina about football being a professional sport that differs from amateur disciplines.
“The real professionals are us,” she wrote.
She continued: “We are the real professionals, the ones who compete and win for the shirt and for our country, while watching millionaire players make a poor showing.” She added: “I train more than a footballer, earning less than their cooks or their nannies.”
It was a neat reminder that Italy’s sporting hierarchy is a little more complicated than football would like to think. And at the moment, considerably more effective.
