Three and a half years as president of the FIGC – from August 2014 to November 2017 – that Carlo Tavecchio, who passed away at the age of 79 during the night atErba hospital for a pneumonia, lived dangerously.
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He was born in '43 in Ponte Lambro in the province of Como, a town where he was mayor for almost twenty years, where he lived and where the funeral will take place on Monday at 15 pm. Politics was his great passion, but it was in football that he achieved his fame.
Between gaffes, reforms, a good European Championship and a historic failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, which cost him his resignation. These were not three easy years for the former n.1 of the Dilettanti (League that he led uninterruptedly for fifteen years from 1999 to 2014), who landed at the helm of football that counts.
His gaffes: from 'Opti Poba' to “Jews”
In the beginning was the slide on 'Opti Poba', then came the gaffe about the “jews”. In the midst of a virtuous path of reforms, however, the revolutionary green light to Yes, until his re-election in March 2017, which seemed to have sealed his four-year term. But the World Cup without Italy, the first in 60 years, dealt the final blow to Tavecchio's leadership in the FIGC.
An obstacle course, his, after having picked up the pieces of a federation that had been wiped out following the flop of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. That the Tavecchio era in the FIGC had been born under the banner of controversy was immediately evident, with the empty passage of the former president of the Amateur League, shortly before taking the Abete's place at the Football Federation.
That Opti' Poba who ate bananas in a speech against the growing number of foreign footballers and for which he apologized, leaving critics and detractors a good argument to accuse him. Tavecchio became president of the Football Federation and began the post-World Cup work with an unexpected move: the hiring of Antonio Conte at the helm of the national team.
Innovative contract, with image rights included, sponsor intervention. Italy restarts and qualifies early for the European Championships. Continental tournament in which that work in progress Italy manages to eliminate Spain and finish the race to the quarterfinals, but on penalties in front of the great Germany.
Tavecchio's FIGC comes out of the European Championship strengthened and is working on regulatory changes: it launches the cap on squads with precise indications on the number of Italians and those coming from the youth sector. It is the first step of the reforms, which continues with the regulations on financial fair play and the launch of the federal centers; but at the center is the mother of all reforms, the reduction of Serie A to 18 teams, launched but immediately stranded in the shallows of the League.
The gaffe about female soccer players being called “4 lesbians”
But trouble is always around the corner and often comes from within: Felice Belloli, Tavecchio's successor at the helm of the Dilettanti, in the minutes of a board meeting defines “4 lesbians” the female footballers. New storm and Tavecchio, still under pressure, gets out of it by pushing Belloli to leave
. Re-elected on March 6, after beating challenger Andrea Abodi, Tavecchio hoped to have put the worst problems behind him. Those of the Leagues remained: commissioner of the Serie A one, he tried to overcome even the last obstacles.
But the worst was yet to come: to avert it he had defined the possibility of Italy not going to the World Cup as an apocalypse. The nightmare instead becomes reality, amid the tears of the accountant from Ponte Lambro who became the king of Italian football.
A minute of silence on all football fields
A minute's silence on all football pitches in the next round of the championships, to remember Carlo Tavecchio. The FIGC has ordered it. "Before all the matches of the national championships scheduled for the weekend (including the postponed matches on Monday)" the Football Federation has ordered that “a minute of silence should be observed to remember Tavecchio,” reads a note.
Furthermore, as a sign of mourning, the flags of the building in Via Allegri – Headquarters of the Federation – and the Federal Technical Center of Coverciano are held at half-mast”.
Article published on 28 January 2023 - 13:07
