Rocco Commisso, president and owner of Fiorentina, recently shared his thoughts on various aspects of the club in an interview with Corriere Fiorentino:
“I feel more Florentine than ever. The Viola Park? We’ve done much, much more than we had in mind: when someone presents you with something beautiful, it’s hard to say no. The result is here to see: Viola Park will remain forever, I believe it’s the greatest gift I could give to the city. To date, we’ve spent 430 million to purchase Fiorentina, adding players every year and creating Viola Park. An investment much, much higher than when we bought the team. This is not a criticism, let’s be clear, but no one has spent like us in these 5 years, not the Della Valle, not Pontello, not even the Cecchi Gori combined. I’m proud of it.”
“Results? I know that we’ve done what was possible in these years to bring Fiorentina as high as possible. We’ve made some mistakes, okay, but let’s not forget that I took over a team on the brink of relegation. Can we go higher? I hope so, the goal is to always improve, year after year. The only thing we’ve lacked in these years is a trophy. We’ve lost three finals: if the trophies had come, everyone would be much happier. Me first. But we are where we are, and we want to reach higher than 7th-8th place: we have the possibility because the team is stronger than last year.”
“Nico Gonzalez? I didn’t want to let him go, but what can I do… We had extended his contract. Then this summer I went to visit him in New Jersey at the Argentina National Team retreat: Quarta came to greet me, Nico stayed in his room. Maybe he was tired… That’s life, what can you do… The problem isn’t tearing up contracts, but tearing them up and getting nothing. This isn’t good. Juventus sold Chiesa to Liverpool for 12 million. Who made the deal? Fans don’t understand that we’re a company that must consider both the sporting and financial sides. It was right to keep Chiesa the first year, right to sell him the second. It was also right to sell Vlahovic: if we didn’t let them go, they would have left for free. The 150 million received from Juve for those three helped us build the team. Vlahovic had another season on his contract. The agent told us: either you let him go or he stays put for a year and a half. We had no other choice. I tried to talk to him, but he firmly wanted to go to Juventus, immediately. Then he showed up in Turin saying “I have Juve DNA”… But explaining this to fans is difficult. And anyway, it seems to me that Vlahovic hasn’t done great things at Juventus yet.”
“A new stadium? In America, if you respect the rules, there’s much more freedom to act. At Mediacom, we invest 400 million dollars every year and they don’t come telling us we need this permit, that one, this one again. We do what needs to be done and move forward. Then, if we were to break the rules, it’s obvious they would come asking for an explanation. In Italy, however… I don’t understand why in Italy stadiums should be managed by municipalities. I think they should be managed by clubs. The Franchi? I don’t want to put money in, but if there’s a possibility to do something and do it quickly, we can talk about it. Between October and November of last year, we presented Nardella with a proposal to support the realization of what was the complete stadium project, because the municipality didn’t have and probably still doesn’t have all the funds to do it, in exchange for a long concession, management, rent but we never received an official response. We hope that with Funaro we can reach the point where we can move forward. But quickly, because we’re wasting too much time. We want a timeline, not just for this season but also for future seasons, and the possibility to continue playing at the Franchi. Once they present us with a timeline, costs, timeframes, then we sit down at the table again to understand how everything can be done better and possibly faster. If there’s an opportunity, if it’s done quickly, and if total control of the stadium will be Fiorentina’s, with a long concession, to manage marketing, costs, revenues… well, we could sit around a table to see if we can help finish this project. If we don’t reach the point quickly, it would be a disaster for Fiorentina.”
“Selling the club? In my home, I’m in charge. I’ll leave when I want to leave, and that moment certainly hasn’t arrived yet.”
