From former footballer to bandit, then redeemed thanks to Gianfranco’s forgiveness: “I stopped him at the petrol station, his wife got scared. When I met him she laughed about it: ‘It would have been your business, I eat a lot’. I was the Maradona of the prisons”, with me were the bandit from Magliana, the Marchese brothers and some Camorra members”
There is a song by Francesco De Gregori, “the bandit and the champion”, which tells a similar story. The dates also coincide. A promising cyclist who sees his dream shattered and takes a wrong path: Sante Pollastri, in some ways, reminds us of Fabrizio Maiello, nicknamed “The Maradona of the Prisons”. In the cell they called him that. His is a slice of life made up of disappointments, suffering, crime and redemption. In the midst of an attempted kidnapping that has become a cult. “We wanted to kidnap Zola and then ask Tanzi for a ransom.” Fabrizio Maiello talks about himself through the eyes of someone who has lived ten lives in one: wide open, aware, ready to touch the hardest pages of his experience. As a young man he was a promising footballer, then an injury shattered his dreams and drugs and bad company arrived. So the arrests, the shootings and much more. In 2024, thirty years later, Fabrizio and Gianfranco Zola met again, embraced and Maiello received forgiveness from the former yellow-blue number ten.
Fabrizio Maiello, let’s start from Zola. How did it go?
“It was 1994. I was locked up in the judicial psychiatric hospital of Montelupo Fiorentino. I had no one, my wife was dying. I decided to escape and became a fugitive: ‘We want to kidnap Zola, so we will ask Tanzi for a ransom’, they tell me. I accept. We get into two cars, the plan was to follow him on the motorway and then ram him once we get out. But there an unexpected event happens…”.
“Gianfranco stops at the petrol station. He even goes out and stays to talk to the petrol station attendant. We didn’t have time, we were four fugitives in two stolen cars and with guns on us. So we get out, pretend nothing had happened, we look around. He notices us, comes towards us: ‘Hello guys, do you need something?’. That smile was a light that came on inside me. I still remember his eyes, good, pure. They shone. They represented my dream in football: it was what I hadn’t managed to become. There I decided not to do anything, in fact I had an autograph signed on my identity card.”
And he didn’t notice anything?
“His wife Franca yes, she was scared. At first he wasn’t, then when he saw the tattoo on my hand, with the five points of the underworld, he quickly got into the car and left”.
“I had already decided not to kidnap him. But we still chased the car for a while. We went to rob a bank immediately afterwards. For them it wasn’t a problem if we kidnapped Zola or did something else, only the money mattered.”
What would happen next?
“The plan was to kidnap him and ask for a ransom. We would have sent a letter to his wife with the instructions to follow.”
“Because he was the number ten and the star of that Parma team. Tanzi would have paid the ransom and maybe he would have kept silent. Gianfranco also asked me when we met. He even made a joke: ‘It would have been your business if you had kidnapped me, I ate a lot, I was a pain in the ass’, he told me. And we laughed together. I’m happy to have obtained his forgiveness.”
It was like coming full circle meeting him for her. Do you remember the emotion?
“It was one of the best days of my life. He welcomed me into his home, he forgave me. I cried the whole time. Gianfranco and his family are golden people. I want to thank the journalist Marco Cattaneo, who made this meeting possible and told my story on the ‘Maradona of the Prisons’ podcast. Now a book will also be released.”
Did they call her that in the cell?
“Yes, because I was good. Football had seduced and abandoned me. I wanted to play, I got as far as the Monza Primavera, but after an injury I was forced to stop. I found it unfair, I was angry with the world. So I started hanging out with bad company. I had nothing to lose. I was respected, because that’s how it works in prison: if you studied, no one cares, but if you’re good with the ball, then it means you have the right ‘cazzimma’ for the criminal world. It was my luck, but also my bad luck. On the one hand they called me the ‘Maradona of prisons’ and they didn’t touch me. On the other they told me: ‘No more robberies, come with us’. And once I got out, I got worse and worse.
He was in prison with “il Bufalo” of the Banda della Magliana.
“I remember his exultation when they informed us that Giovanni Falcone had died in the Capaci massacre… With us in the cell there were also the Marchese brothers and some Camorra members. They were all happy. I looked at them and thought ‘What have I got to do with these people?'”.
And what response was given? What did he have in common with them?
“Only the lack of fear. I wasn’t afraid of dying, in fact sometimes I perhaps wanted to. And when you have nothing to lose you are capable of doing anything: you destroy yourself.”
What kind of man is Fabrizio Maiello today?
“A new man. I collaborate with the Libera association of Reggio Emilia and tell my story in schools. Every year I set new dribbling records with Uisp. In September I reached the top of the Superga hill dribbling: I want to thank Turin for giving me the opportunity”.
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