Sampdoria owder Massimo Ferrero insists that salaries will be paid amid reports that the club risks a possible points penalty. The Blucerchiati have failed to pay their players for the last quarter of 2022 and were at risk of a points penalty if the payments weren’t made by February 16.
Ferrero has been in talks to sell the club for a number of months, having stepped down as president after his arrest in 2021 as part of an investigation into corporate crimes and bankruptcy.
Speaking to Sport Mediaset ahead of this weekends match against Inter, Ferrero assured salary payments will be made and that nobody will exclude’ the club from Serie A:
“Do Sampdoria risk a penalty? The football institutions do not say anything because they have every interest in Sampdoria being saved, it is a Unesco heritage site, it is a historic and important club born from a merger on 12 August 1946.
‘The salaries will be paid, but let’s lower the tone. Nobody will kick Sampdoria out of the championship, nobody will do anything to Sampdoria because Sampdoria will pay salaries. The most that can happen will be a delay in payment, but this will not happen, because when I was president and there was a lockdown I paid everything, I delayed the salaries a little bit but we talk to the boys, the players care about the jersey, the protagonist is Sampdoria.
“Someone says I hold Sampdoria hostage but I don’t hold anyone hostage. If there is a buyer I am ready to sell. They talk about Merrill Lynch and Barnaba, but Barnaba didn’t want to do anything, he wanted to put up thirty million and empty Sampdoria. They talk about Luca Bettonte, whom I do not know, he is a good person but there is too much talk about him,.
“Edoardo Garrone? (Former Sampdoria president) he is a good person, he has not given me anything but I will always thank him, just as I thank Banca Sistema, which stands by our beloved Sampdoria. I did what I had to do at Sampdoria, I won twelve derbies, I created the women’s team from nothing, the under-18 team, I created the pitches and worked on the stadium, I had to redo the changing rooms but that got blocked.
“Every now and then someone comes out who wants to buy but they only advertise. If you want Sampdoria try to be concrete. I hope that someone better than me will come and buy Sampdoria. And I think we would all be happy about that,’ Ferrero concluded, referring to the trustee.
