It has emerged that renowned Canadian artist Drake came to be Venezia’s saviour last season, helping the club raise around €40m, which helped save them from bankruptcy.
Venezia spent the 2021-22 season in the top flight of Italian football, their first in Serie A for 20 years. However, in an effort to keep themselves up, the club took on serious debts, having spent around €20m on transfer fees at the beginning of that campaign.
Ultimately, Venezia were relegated back to Serie B by the spring of 2022, where they remained for a further two seasons before gaining promotion back to the top division through the play-offs back at the start of June.
It has been revealed that Venezia needed an immediate injection of €10m to keep the club afloat last season. They also required a further €30m to keep the club ticking over going forwards.
How Drake saved Venezia from bankruptcy
Matte Babel, who is Drake’s chief brand officer, explained to GQ Italia how the surprise partnership came about.
Babel’s acquaintance Brad Katsuyama, a fellow Canadian and investor in Venezia, certainly came in handy.
“I got a call from Brad, co-owner of Venezia and a good friend of mine,” Babel told GQ Italia.
“He explained the problem to me in a simple way: Venezia has to raise €10m in a couple of weeks, and then at least €30m in a few months, or the club will go bankrupt.
“Venezia is an incredible city, and Venezia has always been a special club. I spoke to Drake, then Brad and I discussed the details of how we could help. Within two weeks, we had a deal, and raised the money needed to pay salaries and avoid bankruptcy.”
Le cose più incredibili succedono a Venezia. Più precisamente, al Venezia FC, che qualche mese fa ha festeggiato la promozione in Serie A e ora annuncia un nuovo incredibile partner tecnico: Nocta, la sub-label Nike di Drake. Scopri come https://t.co/6YLMz1ER2l pic.twitter.com/WN4CY9818i
— gqitalia (@GQitalia) August 10, 2024