Gabriele Gravina
During the post-elimination press conference from Euro 2024, Gabriele Gravina, president of the FIGC, also spoke about the second teams, as gathered by his TMW colleagues.
We excel all over the world from Under 15 to Under 21, where does this journey stop?
“In the lack of valorization of those boys, they are boys who have zero appearances in the clubs. We have tried to set up a valorization process with the second teams but let’s look at reality: we have Primavera teams with 100% foreign players and it has been the age limit has been increased by one year. There is an unconvinced idea about having talent in the house, there is no patience with young people. We try in every way to make them understand how important it is to valorize them. We won the final of the Under 17 European Championship, beating Portugal 3-0 in the final and these guys sometimes don’t even play in the Primavera championship. Why shouldn’t the Federation have the opportunity to influence these things? Because then we are responsible: the criticism I accept them, but they must flow into a clear path. Because if the responsibilities fall to me, I will take them all, but the world of football must also tell me how to divide certain choices and responsibilities.”
Can’t the Federation push for a real sporting ius soli and can’t it have more influence on a second team policy? Are you very disappointed with the team?
“We met last night and everyone was disappointed, the boys were mortified and disappointed like us. The biggest disappointment on their part is that of not having been able to optimize the great sacrifices of these 30 days of work. They worked hard. , they have been away from their families for 30 days and are disappointed with the level of performance. I am not disappointed with the boys, but with the performance. These boys are the baggage in which we must continue to invest, I would challenge anyone to find alternative solutions because I see it It’s hard for alternatives to emerge in 60 days or in six months. What was missing was the ability to demonstrate some objective deficiencies through character, but I don’t want to throw away all the work. On the second teams, I go back to what I said before: we are living in a moment of schizophrenia in the world of football, we all believe that they are important but then you find yourself in court… We are on par from the point of view of investments in the youth sector compared to other countries, but the problem is be able to obtain returns from that expense: if by law you have to release them after a year, why do you have to invest in young people? That of ius soli is another issue: we are talking about it with CONI and the Authorities, but a solution has not yet been found and while we are all looking for solutions to relaunch Italian football as a system, an amendment arrives from a Forza Italia MP… Let’s think always as a system, not just to identify individual responsibilities”.
