The Atalanta-Fiorentina match scheduled for 6pm, ANSA learns, has been postponed due to a serious illness of the purple club's general manager, Joe Barone, occurred in the team retreat close to the match. The decision of the Serie A Football League was read over the loudspeaker of the Gewiss Stadium, without giving the reasons: “The match has been postponed to a later date”, the announcement to the public who was leaving the stadium. Fiorentina never reached the Bergamo stadium, while news on the health of the manager of the Tuscan club is awaited with apprehension.
The medical bulletin
«DG Joe Barone is currently hospitalized in the cardiac surgical intensive care unit of the San Raffaele hospital in Milan directed by Prof. Zangrillo. The clinical conditions are critical but stable.” Thus Fiorentina in a note on the conditions of the manager who was struck by a serious illness in the afternoon. “Barone is currently being treated with the most advanced therapies in terms of support and support of cardiac function. A new update – concludes the note – will be released tomorrow”
“In recent years he has given me a big hand and it is right to give him some well-deserved recognition, so from today he will be the new general manager of Fiorentina and will join the board of directors.” If football is anxious about Joe Baronecurrently hospitalized in intensive care at San Raffaele, is also because a few months after the purchase of the club from Della Valle, Rocco Commisso announced his appointment as his right-hand man in the Viola club, thus strengthening a bond and collaboration that had taken off some years ago. Born in Pozzallo, Sicily, On March 20, 1966, at the age of 8, Barone moved with his family to the United States, to Brooklyn. After completing his studies he began a career in the banking-financial sector which was interrupted after meeting the Italian-Localabrian magnate who included him in his telecommunications company Mediacom and subsequently appointed him vice-president of the New York Cosmos in 2017, immediately after acquiring the share majority saving them from bankruptcy. The Sicilian manager, married to Mrs. Camilla who bore him four children (Pietro who made him a grandfather a year ago, Salvatore, Giuseppe former footballer from Ascoli, Perugia and Salernitana, and Gabriella) in short, he is Commisso's man in every way in the world of football. In fact, the entrepreneur, after sending him to Florence in his stead while waiting to close the deal with the Della Valles, then entrusted him with the management and management of Fiorentina from the very beginning, demonstrating complete trust and esteem. It is Barone who represents the Viola club in the Lega councils, he is always the one who deals personally with the transfer market but also with the Viola Park projects and the stadium affair. In some cases his decisions and his statements have aroused criticism and controversy but Commisso has always taken his side: «The more my managers are criticized, the closer Rocco will stay to them, this is my method» has always replied the purple patron.