Sampdoria crisis, Garrone: “Ferrero and the current board are responsible”

A tough but absolutely coherent stance, that of the former Sampdorian president Edoardo Garrone. Through an official statement released today shortly after 2 pm, in one of the most dramatic moments in Sampdoria’s history, Garrone directly calls Massimo Ferrero into question, whose family is the club’s main shareholder and also the current Board of Directors, led by the ex of the Scudetto Marco Lanna, together with three other directors. Sampdoria is on the verge of the abyss, it has waited in vain until today for Ferrero himself to find the resources to recapitalize the company. But, up to now, as was easily understood, no one has been willing to grant him 35 million by taking the Sampdoria shares as a pledge. A new installment of debts with the tax authorities must be paid shortly and, by February 16, just under a dozen million are needed to pay the salaries of the members of the last quarter of 2022, to avoid a penalty.

THAT PROMISE

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Edoardo Garrone’s open letter is very harsh towards Ferrero, but also calls the Board of Directors to its responsibilities. And his choices. “Sampdoria – explains the former president – has been experiencing a state of crisis since 2019 due to the general situation that has affected the President Massimo Ferrero and his clubs. A person who today receives very harsh judgments, but who until a few years ago was an integral part of the national football system on and off the playing field. In vigilant and industrious silence I have always followed the corporate affairs of Sampdoria. I have not forgotten the sacrifices made by my family during the 12 years in which we had the honor and the burden of having responsibility for the management of the company. I have not forgotten my words of that June 11, 2019 and the atmosphere and circumstances that led up to that moment. It was therefore normal for me, also for the relationship of mutual esteem with Gianluca Vialli to answer “present” when he asked me to help him in his attempts to take over Sampdoria in 2019, supporting him in the negotiations and committing myself with him to sign a quo investment company together with other important international entities. You will all remember Massimo Ferrero’s continuous push and pull and raises, which led Gianluca Vialli after almost a year and two attempts to withdraw the important offers”.

THE PRESENT

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And we come to the present. “When Alessandro Barnaba, in the first days of October 2022, asked me to meet him because he was interested in evaluating the acquisition of Sampdoria with his Merlyn Partner fund, I was very happy first to help him better understand the general context and then to listen and evaluate his plan. The proposal of the Merlyn Fund was characterized by a very serious industrial plan for the rescue of the company and the relaunch of the team and envisaged a series of conditions for its realization and the observance of a precise timetable. Also in this case, as already happened a few years earlier with the Vialli operation, given the quality of the project and the professionalism in the field, we made ourselves available to evaluate the subscription, through our holding company San Quirico, of a share together with other international investors, should the conditions clearly highlighted by Alessandro Barnaba to make the operation feasible have occurred. This scenario, as we all well know, did not materialize. The proposal by Barnaba and Merlyn Partner was not taken into consideration either by the owners who evidently have other objectives but certainly not those of saving the company and relaunching the team, or by the board of directors who with their refusal condemned the bankruptcy it was the last, the only and the best solution able to guarantee a positive future for Sampdoria”. The latest scenarios have only complicated the situation: “Many confused hypotheses have been disseminated, not clarified and never verified by various subjects (including the banks involved) which have generated a climate of unjustified false hopes, thus hiding the true state of health of Sampdoria. Several times in the last few days, then taken up by various journalistic sources, I have been falsely and instrumentally involved in imaginative projects that do not see me present in any way. The conditions set by a professional like Alessandro Barnaba, with a unique track record in Europe (the case of Lille is emblematic and represents one of the most beautiful stories of rescue, consequent relaunch and victory of a football championship in less than 2 years), together with his industrial plan, they were the key to the success of this very difficult rescue operation. The non-acceptance of the plan, its timing and conditions condemned the company to the dramatic scenarios that had already been well hypothesized and described by Barnabas in the previous weeks. As demonstrated by the events briefly mentioned here, in the presence of serious, sustainable projects designed only for the good of Sampdoria, within a pool of investors, we have been there (first with Vialli and then with the Merlyn Fund) and we could be there in the future too. Today’s general context is unfortunately very far from this scenario and the consequences of the decisions that led to the failure of the last deal for the change of ownership and to give Sampdoria the future it deserves can only be attributed to the current owners and the its BoD”.

THE FUTURE

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Now we await the reactions of Ferrero, heavily nailed to his responsibilities, and evidently focused on resolving his financial situations, but without any interest in the company. While the BoD, in the saddle since the end of December 2021, has managed this complicated interregnum, but did not feel like eliminating the share capital to favor the entry of Merlyn, in light of the risk of possible compensation actions by the current major shareholder. And Sampdoria? Keep fighting, but the dream of salvation fades away.