Solesino, challenge between mayor and parish priest: Inter flag on the town hall. The answer: “If Juve wins I’ll ring the bells”

Controversy over the mayor of Solesino, a municipality of 7 thousand inhabitants in Lower Padua, ‘guilty’ of having displayed an Inter flag with the tricolor and two stars on the town hall after winning the scudetto. The gesture was a Peppone and Don Camillo style response to the priest of the Arteselle hamlet, Don Marino Ruggerowho when the Bianconeri were still fighting for the title and had displayed his Juventus flag outside the rectory.

After the mathematical certainty of the tricolour, which arrived with the derby won last Monday, the centre-right mayor Elvy Bentani, re-elected in 2023 and a great fan of the Beneamata, has instructed the workers of the Municipality to display a sewn flag to celebrate the twentieth Nerazzurri championship. The giant checkered cloth was donated to him by Solesino’s Inter club, as he reports The Gazzettinoand, even if hung on the opposite side to the institutional flags, it would violate the rule that prohibits displaying “private or party banners” on public buildings.

The opposition, with the centre-left civic list Solesino Progresso, a centre-left civic list, has decided to ride what could be classified as simple sports joking. “I don’t know if we are faced with vilification, but certainly with a lack of respect for an institutional place such as the town hall, for good taste and decency”, complained the city councilor Andrea Garavello. “The house of the Municipality is everyone’s house, but for the umpteenth time Bentani mistakes ‘public affairs’ for ‘own affairs'”, he added. “If these are the only arguments left for the minorities to attack me”, the mayor’s reply, “it means that they are people who have come to fruition. And in any case Don Marino also displayed a Juventus flag. Yet the church would also be the home of all”.

The council, however, did not split: “All the members are Inter supporters, perhaps only one is a Milan supporter, but he doesn’t declare it publicly”, Bentani assured. The Juventus player Don Marino, however, warned: “If the mayor doesn’t remove it, I will have it lowered. Now I’m waiting for Juve in the Italian Cup final. If they win, I will ring the bells in celebration.” And if she loses “I will play her dead”, he added.