Basketball Trapani, the reasons for the exclusion from the championship

The wind blows very strongly in Trapani, in this corner of paradise in western Sicily with its Arabian features where sport is the only real engine to ignite the hearts and passions of many young people. But there is very little about sport these days. The two football and basketball clubs, owned by the entrepreneur Valerio Antonini (inhibited by the FIP for 4 years), are effectively collapsing, weighed down by an incredible series of penalty points (15 for football in Serie C, 10 for basketball in Serie A) due to various irregularities in social security and tax payments. Last night in basketball, yet another farce took place at Palashark, after last Tuesday’s one in Bulgaria for a Champions League match. Trapani-Trento thus ended at 11-26 in just over four minutes because the local kids were left to play one against five.

drill chaos

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The public was poisoned but at the same time arrived at the palace to be next to what little remained of a team capable of starting the championship with ten wins out of eleven before falling into chaos. There are 3,400 season ticket holders, yesterday there were around 1,500 present, this is to make it clear what level of resignation the city has reached. And it is a farce that has no logic at the moment because Antonini’s resistance only exposes children to fools, or rather minors who should be protected from such havoc. Now we can no longer pretend nothing happened. And it is the common thought of Fip and Lega who have called a meeting for tomorrow, at the federal headquarters in Via Vitorchiano in Rome, to study the right moves to put an end to this torment that is circulating on social media throughout Europe. If it were up to Antonini, on Saturday against Trieste he would repeat the same scenes as last night. And Alessandro Marzoli, president of Giba, the basketball players’ union, said it well: “We return to ask for respect for the athletes of Trapani, after the match played against Trento. We do not understand the reasons behind the insistence on wanting to play at all costs and to allow the holding of indecent matches that lack the minimum competitive fairness. We reiterate again that it is not acceptable to force professional players to take to the field if there are not the minimum sporting conditions to do so, also putting I risk the health of basketball players, who see the risk of injuries exponentially increased. Athletes are workers in all respects and deserve to be protected and treated with respect. We appeal to the Trapani Shark company to immediately find a solution to put an end to what is becoming a source of shame for the basketball movement and for the entire Italian sports system”.

the previous one

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In March 2019, Mens Sana Siena was excluded from the A-2 championship after yet another farce match, losing 93-61 against Biella with the Junior kids on the pitch. Then the Sports Judge assessed that, among other things, “we are faced with a clear alteration of the competitive equality of the teams on the field” and “also taking into account the general behavior of the club, characterized by the presence of numerous arbitration procedures and resolutions of the Federal Council relating to declarations of arrears which have determined and will determine the application of penalty points and financial fines, as well as open investigations by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office”, ordered the exclusion from the championship with the elimination of all the points obtained against the Tuscan club which, before the match in Biella, had lost 20-0 for having renounced the trip to Legnano. The intention at this point is to propose the same scheme again, just as happened with the Tuscans. There is no competitive equality, and that’s what happened last night. All around, then, only demobilization, resignation and a general sense of abandonment. Last night, even the bars inside the building remained closed, and on the tables in the press gallery there were still sheets of the match program for December 28th against Varese, when it was the real match (the guests won), but above all there was a team. It seems like an eternity, but it’s only been two weeks.