I wanted to post something about this last night, but I didn’t want to jump the gun, although I expected us to lose this game.
Valdrin I'm with you 100% about this, our performances under Cuper have been dismal, and embarrassing in my opinion, Parma Calcio never played this way even under Passarella.
However to blame Cuper solely would mean avoiding the real problem this club really has.
Lemme take you back to January 07 when our saviour Tommaso Ghirardi rolled into town, I'm not going to pretend to be well connected and know everyone etc, but Parma is a small place, it wasnt a problem to at all to get into the presentation in Banco Monte. I had a first hand chance to see what the man was all about.
The presentation was completed, he gave the speech and answered the media questions etc, and then he and Medeghini, Bondi and Zamagna and the senior Parma management were just mingling with Parmesan high society (wine and cheese etc) I took my chance and spoke to him for about 5 min just to get a proper feeling of what he was about.
Although the journalists and people were impressed him, I had my doubts about this guy, even more important when I found out Parma Calcio was sold for only €4 million euros, I was pretty stunned.
Enrico Bondi (Parmalat adminisrator) was desperate to offload Parma, he was in the middle of a deal to sell Parmalat for billions since he balanced the books, and was getting rid of all the accessory assets of Parmalat, like Parma FC.
I was pretty certain that at €4 million, plus a guarantee from a bank that they would bail the club out if there is any financial trouble in the horizon would be more than enough to persuade someone with deeper pockets to invest in the club.
Anyway boring financial issues aside, I had a problem with Tommy firstly for his lack of experience, coming from the lower divisions and attempting to run the club the same way as Carpendolo, secondly he was talking as if he had money and it became evident pretty soon he didn’t have the financial power to elevate Parma back to being a competitive team.
Now most people have a picture I assume of an English style set up in Parma, where is the Chairman at the top, then Senior management then Director of Sport (who deals with the technical side of things) then the coaching team.
The proper structure is supposed to be:
Chairman --> Director General --> Director of sport --> Team general manager --> Head coach.
Our structure is: Ghiro ---> Zamagna ---> Manager.
The other problem which would be prove to be disastrous in the long run for Parma, was that Ghiro is a ****ing control freak, he kept Zamagna on only because he is a yes man, he's pretty much involved in the technical side of the club, like signings and targets he's there all the time in Collecchio, as if he is part of the process.
This is Parma Calcio, a Serie A team with great history and achievements, you don’t come and learn how to run big clubs and practice on us :yuck:
I always believed in separation in clubs, between the money men and the football men. The suits most of the time are clueless about football and their interference only worsens the situation.
He didn’t bring in an experienced Direttore Generale to run the club, Franco Baldini was available at the time, Luca Baraldi too. He kept on board a useless Director of Sport Gabriele Zamagna (A man who was heavily over promoted in the first place) Lorenzo Minotti despite practically begging for a job was ignored, in his previous role as General manager of the team, he was the buffer between the technical side of the club, and the financial side, and he was fecking great at it in all honesty.
However he made one decision which I approved of, signing Claudio Ranieri, even then they managed to screw it up, I think it was clear before the Empoli game we were going to survive, Ranieri wasn’t approached by Juve just yet, they should have signed him on to a 2-3 year contract and bring some continuity and stability to the club.
So for short term gain, I have a feeling we're going to suffer long term pain, I'm even worried he might ditch the club if we don’t manage to make it back up straight away (assuming we're relegated)
I would trust (random XT member) lets say Lucagol at 23 years of age to run this club more efficiently and that really says a lot. If our problem was just the manager or director of sport, it can be solved, they can be axed, but what if the owner is part of the problem and not part of the solution. :stress:
My head says: Its the end of the dream, my heart says: anything's possible.
