Vade Retro? No, go back. It is the non-EU visa spent by Basketball 2.015 and Cantù to sign Kenny Hayes and Robert Johnson in the summer and which, after the forced renouncement of the two US athletes not willing to get vaccinated and not in compliance with the super green pass rules now in force in sport amateurish, he had become like a card already thrown on the card table. Impossible to take it back in hand to ideally discard another one. Impossible… until it is decided to the contrary.
That of Coni, which in fact changed the rules of the game, noting and sanctioning the extraordinary nature of the moment and the story. His position, formally requested by the Fip following the requests presented by the clubs, is binding and has therefore led the latter to reassign the “burnt” visa to the two clubs by the choice of the two no-vax athletes. Now, therefore, Forlì and Cantù will be able to choose the replacements of Hayes and Johnson no longer only in the very small circle of Americans cut off by other A and A2 teams or players with European passports: they will be able to reopen their gaze, and negotiations, to the whole world. . It goes without saying that this changes everything.
The decision
9.36 yesterday: on the pec of Basketball 2.015 arrives the long-awaited email signed by the general secretary Maurizio Bertea: “Following the opinion of the competent CONI office, the company is granted the possibility of using an additional visa for the registration of a non-EU athlete “. Here is the text that closes a path that Romagna and Canturini had started together on 10 January, as soon as national regulations made it impossible to train and play athletes who did not have a reinforced green pass.
Coni recognizes that the visa used in the summer in the presence of a different regulatory framework linked to Covid, is to be considered lost for reasons of force majeure. Explicitly, “the succession of regulations has made the sporting performance definitively unenforceable for reasons not attributable to the sports club”. The entry visa is recoverable, also because for this year we are far from the ceiling of the 208 overall assigned to basketball (we are at 180).
The battle
Forlì and Cantù had long ago requested the Fip what was obtained yesterday. Now they rejoice. “It was a long, silent and painstaking work done together to remedy the unjust consequence and the damage caused to us by a national provision that we do not in itself contest, but which was signed and became operational in the championship in full swing – says the president Nicosanti -. This forced us to give up, undermining competitive equity compared to other teams ».
The Fip had asked the board of directors of LNP to express its opinion on the matter and on January 14, from an emergency meeting, the companies’ request had been “no”. “It was objected that for athletes disqualified for doping visas are not reassigned, that the possibility had to be foreseen first, that competitive fairness would be distorted and that, in this way, a precedent would be created – recalls giemme Renato Pasquali – but the “case” is very different, anomalous, new and the rule was not on the horizon when the contracts were signed, with Hayes declaring himself ready to be vaccinated in August. Despite this, we insisted and CONI acknowledged that we had been penalized by a regulatory upheaval ».
The future
Now the Unieuro broadens the horizon of its choice. «We are sorry that in the League the particular interest prevailed over the more general one, ours is not an exception that will always rule – admits Nicosanti -. We now have more room for maneuver, but we are in no hurry. We want to replace a player like Hayes worthily, so we could also wait a few weeks to make the best choice for the decisive moment of the season. In the meantime, with the recovery of Benvenuti and the addition of Rush and Pazin, the team remains strong and can win even in this way ».
