Athletics in Bologna, Gymnastics and Cycling in Brescia, Handball in Padua, Basketball in Pesaro, Martial Arts in Rome waiting for the Sail in Genoa. The purpose of the Sport and Social Inclusion call of the Undersecretary for Sport Valentina Vezzali was to marry national sports federations with small municipalities, in particular in the South. But the 45 projects admitted to the NRP funding miss both objectives. Many capitals in the running (even if for once the city of Milan abstained) and a little South: twelve initiatives admitted for funding, that is 27% instead of the 40% required by law.
From the Department to Sports makes sure that using spending savings of 46 million and considering all the calls, in the end the 40% threshold will be respected. The point, however, is not the scale of the cents but the quality of the action on the pitch. And the idea of involving national sports federations to sponsor local initiatives was a good one, if only it had a few stakes. In the first place, the Municipalities that already participated in the main tenders had to be excluded. Furthermore, it was possible to cover the entire national territory allowing the federations to indicate two projects, one of which in the South, in order to have enough initiatives to choose from. The sports federations, faced with the constraint of a single municipality, have gone on the safe side and have traced the geography of national sport. A doped ban, Il Mattino predicted in the investigation of last April 29th. And the official results confirm the fears. However, the results are published in an extremely concise manner, with the simple list of municipalities admitted or excluded, without even indicating the national sports federation involved.
However, based on the information gathered, the betrayal of Mission 5’s principle of inclusion and cohesion is evident: Emilia Romagna for example beats Campania for nine two-man projects, with initiatives of great value such as Athletics in Bologna, Swimming in Riccione, Baseball in Modena. In the South there is something, not always very useful, like Squash in Cosenza, a sport in decline for some time, whose federation is headed by Antonella Granata, from Cosenza. And so the Calabrian city will be equipped with a 500-seat squash facility. The choices of the federations are not always inspired by logic of this type: the president of the rowing federation, the champion of Pompeii Giuseppe Abbagnale, indicated the Terni plant in Piediluco. In the South the positive exception is Puglia, which has scored six initiatives, including interesting hits such as the Powerboat on Lake Varano and the Weightlifting in Capurso, in the province of Bari.
Among the best known sports, three are missing. Meanwhile, Football, because the FIGC, faced with 500 requests and the obligation to indicate only one, preferred to withdraw from the ban. Then Motoring, which has chosen to play at home by financing the Vallelunga plant in Campagnano di Roma, but the project has been excluded for the moment. Finally, the Vela, in a similar condition in Genoa. Also in Campania there is an excluded project and it is that of Fisdir in Capaccio Paestum, the Paralympic federation of athletes with intellectual and relational delays. On the other hand, the projects of Montecorvino Rovella, supported by the wheelchair basketball federation, and of Campagna, supported by Fidasc, federation of hunting sports weapons, are accepted.
The 45 projects admitted have a maximum funding of 4 million, with 171 million allocated. The entire package called M5C2, in the Pnrr sector dedicated to Sport and social inclusion, is worth 700 million, of which, however, most of which is reserved for provincial capital municipalities or at least 50 thousand inhabitants. Now the admitted municipalities and sports federations have until March 31, 2023 to start the races. For the hundreds of excluded municipalities – including Angri, Arzano, Buonabitacolo, Calabritto, Caposele, Casalvelino, Castel San Giorgio, Falciano del Massico, Foglianise, Nocera Inferiore, Orta di Atella, San Felice a Cancello, Sant’Antonio Abate, Terzigno – the bitterness of having participated in a handicap competition.
