Scandone, from A to C: a destiny to be written or perhaps already written

Silence for the sporting abyss: Scandone has also said goodbye to Serie B and this time it is the field to sentence relegation, even if the reflexes of the company and parent company limits (the fate of the club is still closely linked to that of Sidigas and of the owner, Gianandrea De Cesare) have renewed themselves over a two-year nightmare.

In the first season (2019/2020) after the farewell to Serie A due to the impossibility of respecting the Comtec parameters, decisive for the registration, it was canceled by the covid with the penultimate Scandone in group D of Serie B. In 2020/2021 , the Irpinia team confirmed the position: penultimate place, but with a clear difference compared to the previous year. THE 6 penalty points, caused by non-payments within the terms provided for the resolution of the awards, have cost dearly to the roster, coached first by Gianluca De Gennaro and then by Rodolfo Robustelli, for the management on the parquet. In fact, without the burden of the penalty, the path on the field would have been less complex for the goal of salvation, missed by a single defeat in the first playout against Reggio Calabria and clearly in the second play-off in order not to relegate against Pozzuoli.

It is frankly difficult to blame the technical staff and a team that came short of the final rounds, full of young players, with little experience. In the desperate mission, perhaps, the choice to exempt De Gennaro and to focus on Robustelli only from the away match in Reggio Calabria was late (the change of pace with the assistant was clear). But these are details that are part of the much more serious corporate situation, which seems to clip the wings of any project from the field.

“The penalty does not impress us”. Thus, from Palazzo di Città, a year ago, the mayor of Avellino, Gianluca Festa, spoke of the -6 which would be confirmed by the FIP also in the following months: a ballast perhaps underestimated by the guarantor of the rescue operation in the two-year period, even if last summer the economic effort was not lacking. The team was set up with a budget that is not low profile for the category, but the examples of the difficulties are perhaps traceable in the adventures of the individual athletes.

Since June 2019, Avellino has been chasing a solution, but the answer may never come. Or maybe it already exists. It is like a destiny to be written, but at the same time already written. In the first months of the year, Scandone avoided the bankruptcy requested by the Public Prosecutor of Avellino by formulating the request for a blank agreement, accepted by the Court, but the unknown is what will happen and on the redefinition of the debt accrued by the owner with Scandone. Serie C has placed a very hard blow, but on an already unsafe and unsustainable complex. It seems very difficult to find a synthesis between the positions to achieve the goal of a restart.

Scandone fell to Serie C in general silence of a people, the green-and-whites, who seem completely out of love with basketball and disinterested in the affairs of society. From the sold-out for the Scudetto semifinals (also the result of the novelty effect and the historic appointment) to the absence of the public, yes due to the limits set by the covid, but also motivated by the total detachment from the sporting events of a club that does not it is more followed by a large part of the city, also or above all because of the extra-field issues that condition, block sports management: this is the most striking aspect in a two-year Serie B two-year period after 19 seasons of top flight.