Cairo, 20 years as president of Turin: from bankruptcy to tranquility

When Urbano Cairo saved Turin twenty years ago, Philadelphia was reduced to rubble. Of the stadium that had accompanied the triumphs of one of the largest teams in history, and which then had become the cradle of many young talents grenade, it was practically nothing remained. The old fans went there on pilgrimage, sighed with melancholy or were invasing: is it possible that the legend had been trampled on like this? They told of Valentino Mazzola, some, of when he pulled on his sleeves and then there was no one for anyone, or of Pulici and Graziani, the twins of the goal of the ’76 Scudetto; Others, less poetic or perhaps only young people, remembered the pizzas that Bobo Vieri boy devoured in the bar in front of the row, one after the other, at the end of the training with spring.

rubble

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The bull was also reduced to rubble, twenty years ago. There was talk of public ministries and not of goals, fakes in the balance sheet and not of false nueve, that is, center forward. The Cimminelli management had brought the club to collapse at the end of a long period suffered, with endors who ended up in the sights of justice, uncertainties about the present and future of society, anxieties and humiliations. And someone, after the failure of the Bull, had the project of a single team in the city. Cairo became president on September 2, 2005, there was a sparted rose with nine players and five boys from spring, the coach was Stringara (the first chosen by the new owner would then be De Biasi) and there was no track even of balls and T -shirts. When he took it, Turin was about to face the seventh Serie B championship of those ten years. In short, it was in the black period of its history.

The three shirts

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It was Sergio Chiamparino, in August of twenty years ago, who asked for help from Urbano Cairo. They shared the passion for the Granata club and the mayor of Turin wanted to meet him to convince him to take society in his hand, to bring it out of the trouble, to return to her secureness and dignity. Cairo was leaving for Forte dei Marmi, he promised him to think about it during the holidays. The love for those colors has always been profound, it was transmitted to him in the family, mom and dad were very fans of Turin, but the operation was complex and the commitment heavily especially for those who had always lived it only as a passionate (and, in his youth, as a footballer, “I was a thinly wing wing but I was a little too emotional”). When Chiamparino telephoned him again while he was in Versilia, Cairo spoke to his wife. He told in an interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport: “I said to her: I jump to Turin, the mayor continues to call me, I explain to him that I don’t feel like taking the company and returning immediately here. But he saw that in the suitcase I put three shirts. He asked me: sorry, but you shouldn’t have to go and come back, because so many shirts? That summer in Forte dei Marmi have not seen me anymore”.

Italian

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Urbano Cairo became the longest -running president in the history of Turin, he has passed the nineteen years of Orpheus Pianelli. Few others remained at the helm of important clubs for a long time in our football: Ferlaino at Napoli and Berlusconi at Milan have reached thirty -one years; Two presidents still in office, De Laurentiis and Lotito, took Naples and Lazio a year earlier compared to Cairo, in 2004, and they too managed to remedy corporate situations on the borders of the disaster. Italian owners who have traced a virtuous road just as the clubs in foreign hands, between investment funds and the like, become the majority, eleven against nine. It happens that there are often disputes, but it happens a little everywhere, even after a won championship, perhaps because there are more claims to those that can allow the turnover (now determined above all by television rights), but there are many – even if perhaps silent – those who include and appreciate careful, safe management, projected to protect the future.

twenty years

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In this period, Turin has become another thing. Philadelphia is a bit the symbol of change: it is reborn after almost twenty years of controversy and betrayed promises, now it is an increasingly modern training structure, so the people and the grenade players continue to trample on the land on which the ultra -hundred year old history of society was built. It has been invested to facilitate the work of today’s team by enhancing the strength of the past. It is now active – and the new home of the youth sector must be completed within a few months – the new house of the youth sector: it is there that the talents of the future grow, in the wake of the tradition of Turin. Moreover, among the flagships of the era-cairo there are the excellent results of the nursery, from the return of spring to the Scudetto to conquer the Italian Cup and Super Cup, up to the championships won also last season by the Under 18 and the Under 17. And which led, in the last championship, six boys to the debut in A. Economic solidity now allows you to have growing sports ambitions. Torino plays in Serie A from fourteen consecutive seasons, most ended in the left column of the ranking, and has returned twice in Europe (the victory in the legendary San Mamés of Bilbao is a company never succeeded in an Italian team). It is no longer the era of follies and failures, football today must be sustainable: history and solidity, philadelphia and guaranteed future.