Italian Football and the Libyan Revolution

Two Seconds After This Run He Failed a Drug Test.

Word on the street is that another North African nation might be shedding its political leader as Muammar Gaddafi faces massive protests in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. With this potential revolt poised to be covered more so in blood than in velvet–the current phrase is “kill or be killed“–the celebrations witnessed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square will likely not be repeated in in Tripoli.

And while most international observers would applaud the ouster of Keith Richard’s militant brother much as they did Hosni Mubarak’s, there is a small village in the heart of Italy who might be a bit sad. The longer Gaddafi remains embroiled in a revolution teetering on the brink of a civil war or gets the boot entirely, the longer it might take them to get a new football training ground.

See, last summer when Gaddafi visited Italy for the G-8 Summit following the L’Aquila earthquake, his entourage made a detour in the quaint village of Antrodoco. Hard-hit by worldwide recession and high unemployment, the commune of 2800 residents was later “adopted” by Gaddafi, with the dictator promising investment for a luxury hotel and a water bottling plant.

Included in these plans were talks of new soccer facilities to be built in the shadows of the mountains bordering the village so that Antrodoco’s chronically under-employed youth will have something to do. It’s probably a safe bet to say that’s not happening now, what with Gaddafi likely having to save his pocket change to buy a plane ticket out of Libya soon.

Now, this could have been taken as a simple photo opportunity for the dictator or a feeble attempt at decent PR whilst in Europe, but Muammar Gaddafi’s interest and investment in Italian soccer is not simply a fleeting happenstance. One of Gaddafi’s sons–Saadi Gaddafi–tried his hand at Serie A football with minor stints at Perugia, Udinese, and Sampdoria.

At one point Saadi sat on the board at Juventus–of which the Gaddafi family has a 7.5% ownership stake. The Old Lady once benefited from a sponsorship deal with Tamoil, the Libyan-owned oil company, but have since had to end that relationship due to political turmoil within Gaddafi’s regime.

If Gaddafi’s regime does topple, one of the first things likely to be done will be to freeze financial transactions and begin investigating where Bizarro Keith has been spending the nation’s cash. A list of links between Italian companies and Libyan investment is already being compiled, and you might have noticed one of those companies has been in the news recently regarding Roma.

Unicredit is the bank appointed by Roma’s owner Rosella Sensi to sell the capital club and it recently gave the green light for a US investment group to buy the club. The DiBenetto Group are now in formal talks with Unicredit on a buy-out, but if things spiral further out of control in Libya and Gaddafi accounts begin getting shut down, will Unicredit have issues concluding the deal on its end?

Also, what becomes of the ownership stake in Juventus? Does that additional capital the Agnelli family’s been using to return the Old Lady to its pre-Calciopoli days get stopped cold? Certainly, Juve and Roma succeeded before Libyan investment entered the fray and both clubs should be fine later, but there could be slowly rippling repercussions from the upheaval that will upend the apple cart in the present.

As for Antrodocco, the residents might need to start trying to bottle that mineral water themselves–that Libyan sugar daddy’s going away for a while.