Club In Crisis: Serie A Stragglers Parma Sold For €1 For Second Time In Two Months

Chris Wright

10th, February 2015

By Chris Wright

No offence lads, but collectively you’re not worth the price of a Kinder Egg

There was a time, not so very long ago, when dark horses Parma boasted one of the most illustrious squads in European football, with the likes of Faustino Asprilla, Gianfranco Zola, Fabio Cannavaro, Pippo Inzaghi, Juan Sebastian Veron, Hristo Stoichkov, Gianluigi Buffon, Lillian Thuram and Hernan Crespo all passing through during the mid-to-late 1990s.

Now, with the club rock-bottom of Serie A, nine points adrift of safety and already teetering over the relegation precipice despite still having 17 games left to play, their owners have cut their losses, taken a huge hit and sold up for the price of a Kinder Egg.

According to ESPN FC‘s report, the Gialloblu announced in a statement on their website that Italian businessman Giampietro Manenti has taken control of the club for just €1 (about 70p) – the same nominal amount paid by the Russian-Cypriot conglomerate that purchased the club from previous owner Tommaso Ghirardi back in December.

“We’re going to pay everything,” Manenti told Mediaset television.

“It’s been a turbulent time for the players, but I’ve come away satisfied with our meeting. They were not asking for their wages, they were asking for the situation to be saved.

“It will be our duty to respect the deadlines, both of taxes and salaries. We are going to try to get other Italian and foreign companies on board.

“We’re really motivated to get going and we’re close to a very important deadline for the club.”

As things currently stand, Parma’s first-team players and staff have not received any wages since July (for which they have been docked points) – and that’s presumably not accounting for the whopping 70 – seventy! – players they currently have farmed out on loan at various clubs around the world.

Indeed, senior players Antonio Cassano and Felipe both requested to have their contracts torn up recently, with Parma’s coin-counters more than happy to oblige.

This comes after the club managed a sixth-place finish in Serie A last season before being refused a place in the Europa League by UEFA due to unpaid tax bills and missed payment deadlines.

What a bloody palaver!

Posted in Newsnow, Serie A

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