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Live – Roma’s Shareholders Meeting begins

John Solano
I

Roma’s latest Shareholders Meeting took place today at 15.00 this afternoon as the group will meet to approve the financial statement for the financial year ending 30 June 2018 while also discussing other topics.

Here are the live updates of the meeting:

(15.30 CET) Baldissoni begins: “Before starting, I would like to mention briefly that 27 are able to vote after the recent passing of Lamberto Alfonsi”.

(15.41 CET) Shareholder Alberto Maria Muscio takes the floor: “In regards to the budget, I’ll refer to what I read in Sole 24 Ore, which judge the management of the club is healthy and this makes us optimistic about the future. However, there’s been an increase in costs and revenues could decrease. We hope we can achieve results in the Champions League, but if we do not reach one of the top four places, the situation could get worse”.

(15.55 CET) Shareholder Fabio Palma is next: “We’re here to discuss a budget that’s very triumphalist, I expected better after last year, but we are always in a very precarious situation: we’re reliant on one result and either we qualify for the Champions League or the doors of tragedy open. For the umpteenth time, our dear President has missed the opportunity to greet us, not because his presence invigorates the team but because at least it can bring a little respect to us who represent the Giallorossi fans. We sell our best players because they’re given offers that we cannot match. Relative to our revenues, the staff’s wages are always high. Then we go out at buy players who aren’t good enough for PSG. If they’re not good enough for PSG, why are they good enough for Roma? Where’s the policy of developing youngsters? The only youngsters we have are the ones we pay a high price for or the ones we’ve bought back. Our youth set-up isn’t valued and we have young players all throughout Italy but yet we don’t get anything for them. We buy seasoned players while thinking our youngsters aren’t up to it. We had excellent revenues and we have some important costs this season – what happens if we don’t qualify for the Champions League? Do we sell everyone? It would be difficult to sell Pastore, Nzonzi and Marcano. A club doesn’t become great by pretending like they’re already great. We appointed a sporting director with the ability to unearth new players. Why isn’t Monchi here to explain? He bought us players who are completely unsuitable and are uncommitted and they say they can’t wait to go to United or Real Madrid. We spent €42 million on Schick, who everyone described as a champion but all I see is a player who hasn’t committed himself. We need to be more concrete and avoid buying useless players”.

(16.02 CET) Shareholder Gianluca Marini speaks: “It is essential to strictly enforce the regulations for everyone in order to compete and win. There has been an improvement in the medical staff. We don’t have a ‘B’ team but Juve created one, for a team who constantly sells players this is something that’s essential to have and develop a winning mentality. Juventus wins, we do not. A proposal – as an athletic trainer, I would like Paolo Bertelli. We need him to win”.

(16.30 CET) Mauro Baldissoni responds: “High costs are necessary to guarantee a high sporting performance. If costs are high, revenues must be equally high to support costs. This is a sporting project that must take into account unavoidable economic rules. The revenues resulting from non-participation of the Champions League would reduce costs, though we always try to maintain high or increasing competitiveness. We are proud to present a balance sheet which constitutes a record for revenues in the club’s history. Costs remain at a  high level in order to keep our competitiveness high. As for our youth sector, we spend €15 million a year. I don’t know about other clubs, but I challenge you to find clubs that invest this much in youth. UEFA’s rules require eight Italian trained players and four from the youth sector, which is something we easily achieve. As for the sporting director, we’ve made large investments on youngsters so I find the criticisms strange”.

(17.13 CET) Shareholder Fabio Palma replies to Baldissoni: “UEFA publishes interesting statistics. An interesting one was about the average age of the roster: Roma, along with Juventus, was on the list of the ten oldest teams. What about the participation of a B team? Are we sure that next year we will be granted this? Are we sure that Roma will have the titles and the political strength to get a second team? This year there was certainty, the next no. The level of muscular injuries symbolises the need for the intervention of an athletic trainer who can correct this, the manager is not able to. You made many promises, you talked about technical improvement. Discipline has to improve as does the pride of being Romanista and not feeling the need to go to another European side. If it’s someone who’s merely passing thru, let’s tell them ‘goodbye’ assuming we get the right price. We want the players to love this club as much as we do”.

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