Salernitana could be excluded from Serie A on December 31 and demoted to the amateur leagues if they fail to find a new owner, but how would that affect the season for the other clubs as well?
The situation has been in the balance ever since they secured automatic promotion from Serie B in May.
Owner Claudio Lotito is also the President of Lazio, and the Serie A rules bar two clubs from playing in the same division under the same patron.
Lotito knew he had to sell in order for Salernitana to play in the top flight for the first time in over 20 years.
When there was no deal by the time the campaign kicked off in August, he had to place the club into a blind trust, with those officials given the duty of running Salernitana and above all finding a buyer.
The deadline was pushed back repeatedly, but with 24 hours to go, news agency ANSA reports there are no offers prepared to meet the minimum requirements, including a deposit.
If the worst comes to the worst and Salernitana are excluded from Serie A, it would mean they were unable to play the second half of the season.
In order to preserve fairness, all the points from games in which Salernitana played would also be wiped out.
This could have a real knock-on effect for the other clubs in the relegation battle, as Salernitana beat Genoa and Venezia, while holding Verona and Cagliari to draws.
All their other matches were defeats.
As for Salernitana, this would be treated in a similar way to bankruptcy, forcing them to begin again from the amateur leagues.
With the League down to 19 teams, would three still be relegated and three promoted, or could this be an opportunity for the FIGC to enact desired reforms and reduce Serie A to 18 clubs?
Disgraceful. Only in Italy. I do not believe for a minute that lotito is not controlling the sale, or rather lack of it. And why is one allowed to own a serie b team if it is one season away from being promoted and apparently its so difficult to find buyers for Italian soccer teams.
This was a disaster from the get go..there was no leadership nor money that would allow this team to compete on fair footings and the league should be ashamed of itself.
@SL. Yeah it boggles the mind as to why one is able to own more than one football club in the same country at all. There are numerous potential issues aside from potential match fixing (the big concern with being in the same division), like favorable transactions between the clubs. Even owning more than one club in different leagues is troublesome. Tons of “interesting” moves between the Pozzo owned clubs Watford and Udinese.
Sell Lazio instead, get someone with a brain in
Claudio Lotito should be forced to sell both clubs for putting one of them in this position, sucks for Salernitana as they will get shafted and relegated to amateur leagues, lotito gets to keep Lazio and the FIGC gets to reduce the league participants like they want to.
Eh? Why should the club + it’s fans get punished because of one dim-witted guy, who has much more self-importance than actual intelligence? And who has a bigger ego than a…erm, wallet. Not to mention the league’s ridiculous rules? Could they not foresee something like this happening?Owning 2 clubs?! What’s a fair punishment? They’re only a throw-away club from the neglected south anyway. So let’s demote them, punish the city, fans + potentially ruin them financially too, just for good measure? It’s difficult to wonder what goes on in the minds + halls of governing bodies sometimes?! He does resemble a slimy, octopus, with too much influence + with too many tendril’s in different pies! Acting like he’d saved Serie A in that last TV deal, when it was but another missed opportunity to grow commercially? The brand is not stale by now, it’s not even gone beyond the conception stage? Heck, it’s not even been on it’s first-date yet! That + the league’s ridiculous punishment for a problem they helped create is just another sign of a broken-down, old system. But it’s the fans + city that I feel for the most. : (
Why even let Lotito start the season like that? Why is he an exception?
He knew the rules before going into it.