The passion of a historic football venue and the harsh reality of a sports facility on the edge of survival. Messina president Justin Davis has decided to speak clearly to the city and the administration with a statement that has all the flavor of an ultimatum: without suitable structures and minimum conditions for competitive programming, his sporting project on the banks of the Strait ends here.
Having arrived in Sicily “almost by chance”, Davis claims the efforts made so far to save the sporting title and restore a very complex financial and management situation. “I have invested personal economic resources that I could very well allocate to something else, like no one has done in the last twenty years”, began the Giallorossi owner, recalling the promise made to the fans to bring the square back to the football that counts.
A goal which, however, risks colliding with insurmountable structural barriers. Davis’ j’accuse goes into detail about a stressful daily life for the first team. Training with the stopwatch in hand and limited fields: «We cannot think of winning a championship by training in a field where, after an hour and a half, there are already two teams waiting. It is not acceptable to relegate Saturday morning finishing to an hour and a half to 9am, nor to deny the exclusive use of a changing room to store equipment in a structure shared by seven clubs.”
The continuous “forced commuting” between the historic “Giovanni Celeste” stadium and the “Franco Scoglio” has caused a real athletic massacre: “The results are there for all to see: we already have six players injured due to these continuous surface changes.”
The president specifies that he does not want to raise a fuss for its own sake, but reminds the institutions of the commitments made at the time of the presentation of the relaunch plan for city sport. To win, Davis notes, capital or individual skills are not enough: cohesion and decent infrastructure are needed. «Mine is intended to be a constructive appeal, not a polemical outburst», concludes the patron’s note. «But if I cannot keep the promise made in Messina due to lack of adequate structures or choices that override the needs of the team, I prefer to say goodbye and thank everyone. Now it’s up to you to choose the fate of football in Messina.”