Sampdoria president Massimo Ferrero gave a lengthy interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport where he offered to sell his shared in Sampdoria for €1 to help save the club. The clubs relegation to Serie B was confirmed last week after 11 years in the top flight. A lot of the blame for the clubs recent decline has landed on the shoulders of former president Ferrero, who bought the club in 2014. The film-producer was arrested in 2021 on charges of corporate crimes and resigned from his position as club president shortly after, but refused to sell the club to new investors as recently at January 2023. Speaking with Gazzetta, Ferrero laid the blame at the feet of former owner Edoardo Garrone, offered to sell the club back to him for €1 and insisted that he is doing everything to save the club from bankruptcy.
Ferrero, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
“I raise my right hand and say I swear. On the other hand, it has always been precisely my habit of telling the truth unfiltered that has gotten me so many enemies.”
How much does this relegation hurt?
“So much, the fans did not deserve this huge disappointment. With me at the helm the nightmare would not have been there, but for 18 months I have not decided anything in Samp. They don’t even give me a ticket to enter the stadium.”
Ferrero, you are an important role in the world of cinema: how did the idea of taking over Sampdoria come about?
“Before Samp my name was linked with Napoli, then Roma, they also offered me Salernitana. But I did not want to get into football. I was making five to six successful films a year, producing them and distributing them in my cinemas: in the Roman slang, I was playing it and dancing it. I didn’t need the ball. One day, however, I was introduced to Edoardo Garrone; it was he who sought me out and not vice versa. It was he who offered me Samp, which had already been for sale for a couple of years, but with no buyers.”
Did you not know him?
“No, never seen him before, I knew by reputation his father Riccardo, owner of Erg, where I used to stop for gas. That was it.”
Garrone claims that he only saw you once, and that his only fault was that he did not inform himself well enough about you
“Then the question about telling the whole truth should also be asked of him… It was Garrone who sought me out, the first of a series of meetings we had at the De Russie hotel in Rome. Why deny him? He proposed and gave me Samp, I did not ask him for it. Do you think that Mr. Panconi, today on the board of the club, I didn’t even know him, Garrone introduced him to me a short time ago….”
Why did Garrone decide to sell the club?
“He told me that the club under his management was losing about €30 million a year and his family was tired of putting money back into it.”
So much so that he gave Sampdoria to you for the symbolic price of one euro?
“A partial truth. Because I also bought back the brand that had been sold to Banca Intesa for about €30 million: I have almost finished the installments to pay. Garrone sold me the club for one euro, left a contribution of €15 million and bank guarantees. On the other hand, if I had not had behind me an entrepreneur as thick as him, ready to intervene in any case of need, I would never have taken Sampdoria. But beware: with me, Garrone saved €30 million in losses per year for nine years. Do the math: that’s about €270 million. And during my management I didn’t ask him for anything… Now he disowns me and it’s not nice.”
To hear you speak, it almost sounds as if you are not the owner, but only the one who managed Samp…
“Garrone entrusted me with Samp and always said that if something happened he would intervene. Perfect, prove it: take Samp back, I’ll give it back to you for one euro, I don’t want anything for myself.”
Well exactly one euro I wouldn’t say: to take Samp he would have to pay about €35 million to a trustee in which the company is placed.
“Just do a capital increase and then he can give it to his friend Barnaba or whoever he wants. Talk to the trustee Gianluca Vidal and my lawyer Pieremilio Sammarco, who has tried in vain to contact him.”
There is also talk of €200 million in debt….
“I am absolutely not aware of such a high figure, and in any case the debts accumulated in the last year and a half must be answered by others. Those who fired D’Aversa, then made a three-year contract for Giampaolo and many other blatantly wrong market operations.”
But whose Sampdoria is it?
“The shares are my family’s, but now the company is run by men who are not mine. Lanna I don’t even know. The debacle does not bear my signature.”
An important chapter, requiring honesty and tact: the blown negotiation with the group brought in by Vialli…
“I speak on the basis of documents, emails, messages that I can show. I had closed the negotiation with Vialli, complete with my signature for €88 million, 60 of which were needed to pay the arrangements. A guarantee from Garrone of €25 million was needed to the new group if the team ended up in B and depreciated the squad. It only took a minute to give it, the deal was closed, but Garrone said yes after 45 days. In the meantime we lost 6-7 games, Di Francesco was fired, the team was in crisis: at that point the offer dropped to €40-45 million and was no longer congruous. With Vialli, however, I remained on such good terms that I offered him the presidency of Samp: he thanked me, but he had already committed himself to the national team. The negotiation was not blown up by me, but by Garrone with his delay.”
Here we go again: always Garrone’s fault? But excuse me, why should Garrone have given the guarantee to the new group? These are things an owner does, not a former owner.
“You said it….” (smiles, ed)
No, I only asked a question. But even following the theory of a Garrone “shadow owner,” the scenario doesn’t add up, it seems far-fetched… If he had to guarantee him, intervene him, remedy him, then couldn’t he have kept Samp and simply let you or another manager run it without share transfers?
“That has to be asked of him. Maybe if he had done it with Garrone’s money I would have fought for the Champions League.”
Have you ever paid dividends thanks to Samp or received salaries from the club?
“Dividends never. I have received a salary in the past, like anyone who works. But not in recent years.”
Current president Lanna has been hard on you.
“Lanna talks a lot, but after a relegation like that he should take more responsibility. He may love the club, but knowing how to lead it is another thing.”
Your association with lawyer Romei came to an end….
“He was my civilian lawyer. A lover of football, who eventually got a bit carried away and went the extra mile, making wrong assessments. So our paths parted.”
Do you know that you are no longer liked by the fans?
“They have been conditioned by a media storm against me, but don’t believe it-they still love me. They stop me in the street, they ask me for selfies.”
In Rome maybe, but in Genoa…
“Time is a gentleman. They will understand that under my management, even with my exaggerations and folkloric attitudes, Samp was always competitive, made it to Europe. And it paid salaries….”
Don’t you think that so many of your over-the-top outbursts have taken away from your credibility?
“I am a cheerful man who likes to play it down. But those who know me know that to get where I have gotten you need qualities. I’ve met the greats of the world, then if someone still likes to call me ‘Er Viperetta’ to belittle me, fuck him, I don’t give a damn. That’s just envy.”
Ferrero, you have sent many meetings for recapitalization, time is running out: Samp is in danger of bankruptcy.
“I will do everything so that this does not happen. It is not a challenge between me and Garrone, between me and the board of directors. I am moving in several directions to try to save the club.”
Samp is just one of its companies in crisis. Lawsuits, trials, detention: a long dark period. How much strength does it take to hold on and try to re-emerge?
“I had the world at my feet, now I’m at the feet of the world … But I’m not giving up. There is still so much strength in me, I believe in justice, the truth will come out.”
How many lies did he tell in this interview?
“Zero.”
