Roma President James Pallotta “couldn’t be happier” when drawing Barcelona in the Champions League, but wants a friendly inside the Colosseum.
The Giallorossi certainly were not fortunate in the draw for the quarter-finals, but the American businessman was celebrating.
“I couldn’t have been happier with the draw, because I think we can play with anybody. We did it with Chelsea, Atletico Madrid and Shakhtar,” Pallotta told Sirius XM.
Roma President James Pallotta “couldn’t be happier” when drawing Barcelona in the Champions League, but wants a friendly inside the Colosseum.
The Giallorossi certainly were not fortunate in the draw for the quarter-finals, but the American businessman was celebrating.
“I couldn’t have been happier with the draw, because I think we can play with anybody. We did it with Chelsea, Atletico Madrid and Shakhtar,” Pallotta told Sirius XM.
Part one of his interview with the American radio station is here.
“I’m pretty confident we can play Barcelona. Obviously, it’s an incredible team with incredible talent, not just Leo Messi by any means.
“Having said that, every game is important from here to the end of the season to qualify for the Champions League, so I don’t want us just looking forward to Barcelona.
“The David versus Goliath is more people sending texts and emails to me, but I don’t look at my players as anything less than Barcelona’s.
“They can play anybody, they just have to play 90 minutes and we can’t let a team like Barcelona take advantage of any mistakes. I think the guys are ready to play, I just don’t want us to look past Bologna this weekend.”
After several years of legal battles, appeals and changes to the plans, the Stadio Della Roma project is finally on track.
“It’s still moving along. There’s some final stuff, but everything has been agreed to and approved. Our goal is to get the financing in place in the next six months, we’ve had the bankers in place for a while. We’re looking forward to breaking ground before the end of the year.
“It should be a 26 to 28-month process between the stadium and the entertainment complex, but it’s all coming around. It looks good.
“We made a bid for the Colosseum, but just couldn’t reach an agreement. That just didn’t fly,” joked the patron. “I didn’t realise how important that place was… While the Colosseum is huge, our stadium wouldn’t fit in it!”
Pallotta then revealed there was method to this madness and a game inside Rome’s most famous historic structure was more than just a joke.
“We would love to put a floor down some day and have a charity event, say Roma and Barcelona, and just have a smaller field in an event where we can raise money for Roma Kids. That would be a great event, the city has told me they would love to do something like that.
“Just think of the pay-per-view market, something like Barcelona and Roma playing a friendly inside the Colosseum, I think that’d be pretty cool with tens of thousands of people all over the world paying a small amount to stream it. Some of the money could go to protecting antiquities, but the rest to kids’ programmes.”