There is great expectation in Messina, there is no point in going around it, on the roof of the “Franco Scoglio” stadium, designed in the early 2000s and totally uncovered. How many possibilities are there?
“Meanwhile, these are expectations that Messina shares with many cities in the South. You know that, after a long wait and after surrendering to the fact that the ordinary procedures would not have been sufficient, we have appointed an extraordinary government commissioner for the redevelopment of the stadiums in general. We have given ourselves priorities. The priority was evidently that for Euro 2032. Euro 2032 has an agenda set out by UEFA and the implementation phase of the projects ends, let’s say, in July this year, because in October five Italian stadiums will be indicated by the Federation to UEFA. Palermo is a candidate and is in a very good position. UEFA will evaluate and then think about the construction sites: those that need to be opened will have to start by April-May 2027.”
“The procedure began a year and a half ago – said Abodi – by the municipal administration of Messina, but no request has been received for inclusion in the list of possible candidates. Everyone does their best. I do not express any other judgements. This means that a second phase will open by the end of the year, which will not concern Euro 2032, which will have its own further and separate process, and will include everyone. The fundamental thing is that by the end of the year we start working on prepare the formal documents, feasibility studies and economic-financial plans that also allow the redevelopment of this asset. Just as we spoke with the mayoral candidate Marcello Scurria, who has expressed a priority interest, just as he has expressed it in social infrastructures, those with the highest intensity of civic value. Not because the stadium doesn’t have it, because the stadium is still the beating heart of the city, but we are thinking of the playgrounds, the oratories, the school gyms, the small nearby facilities, the slopes. cycle paths. So it is a complex of activities that looks at the center but also places the needs of the urban suburbs at the centre. Messina has been part of this work for some time, for three years, also with tenders entrusted to Sport and Health, which concern inclusion, neighbourhoods, prisons, parks, bicycles in the city, oratories, school gyms”.
«If I have to record the rate of use of public resources to improve sports infrastructures starting from social ones, I am a little taken aback» continued the Minister of Sport, Andrea Abodi. Also present was FI undersecretary Matilde Siracusano. «For example – he added – the sports facilities of Messina have made half the energy efficiency compared to the national average, i.e. 6%… And we are on the Island of the sun. Even if climate change has changed the conditions a little, healthy energy could be captured through the roofs of sports facilities, 6% have done so and evidently 94% have not. This is not just statistics, it is also poor environmental education and poor civic education, as well as energy costs that could be cut by the sun. I see great opportunities ahead, I am part of a government that evidently has political sensitivities and therefore my candidate is here, but the fact remains that whoever wins will have to pose problems that perhaps those who have governed up to now have not posed.”
So regardless of the Europeans?
“Absolutely yes. Because there are few covered stadiums. In some cases only the main stand is covered, as if the other sectors of the stadium should not deserve the same respect. What we are doing with the Ministry of the Environment and with the GSE is a profound campaign that concerns the energy issue in sports facilities in general, starting from the most energy-intensive facilities, therefore swimming pools just to start from an element that you know well. Then all those facilities that have large surfaces, namely the stadiums, combining the need to cover them for the respect due to those who enter a stadium and for the possibility of generating energy well beyond the needs of the stadium itself, making stadiums an energy community”.
As a man of sport and football, does it impress you that Messina has been relegated to Eccellenza?
“It makes an impression on me. I must say that, out of the respect I have for those who took to the pitch, but above all for the fans and their mental anguish, as usual I try to turn defeats into opportunities. What happened on the pitch, unfortunately, also happened and is the result of the opponents. We must take into account that on the other side there are eleven other subjects who want the same objective as the home team. There are still possibilities, but I dutifully keep quiet because there are procedures, there is a delicacy, there is an objectivity and transparency, so everyone will know everything about the possibility of repechage. Then every year we start again and what was lost one year can be regained by taking advantage of the experience. It is clear that this too comes about, with respect for the roles and the difference in roles, through an intense collaboration with the municipal administration, with the local companies and by thanking the fans every day who still go to the stadium and make small savings to contribute to a sporting project which objectively is always at this level. at a loss from a financial point of view. We live on expectations and we also live on another aspect that is not secondary: the sociality that football, in particular, must be able to develop through schools, the relationship with football schools, offering opportunities and also having the ability to extract the talent that evidently cannot be lost, it is just hidden, a little neglected. So the sporting project is not of secondary importance”.
You have not yet commented on the Rome derby affair and the dispute between the Lega Serie A and the Prefecture of Rome.
“No, I commented on it with a somewhat dejected state of mind, because discussing a few hours before the match, in the uncertainty of the time, without once again taking into account the citizens, makes one’s arms fall a little. The calendar is not something that magically combines, it is also the result of a series of conditionalities that are taken into account in relation to the appointments that concern the individual cities in the year’s calendar. The Internationals are not an extraordinary event: they are extraordinary, but they happen every year and the date of the final is that. I believe that, no matter how much we try to find a solution now, putting it at the level of the appeal to the TAR really makes us fall down. Rome during the Internationals, with the derby on the day of the final of the tournament, as wonderful as the Foro Italico is, extraordinary and excellently managed, it remains a city where there are those who want to go to the stadium, those who want to go to tennis and those who want to live normally It’s right that the game is played on Sunday at 12.30pm, at 12pm or on Monday at 8.45pm. I’m always on the side of my colleague Piantedosi.”
Given what he said about Messina’s relegation and the feeling of the city, isn’t it redundant today to talk about covering and modernizing the stadium? Don’t you think that your visit to the city and the candidate’s program could be misunderstood?
“I think that the fundamental thing is the clarity with which one speaks. You decide this, you evaluate it, those who read the newspapers and listen to the news. And the sincerity of the commitments you make and the seriousness with which you do not make commitments and explain things also counts.”