“We need to invest more in sport, perhaps taking something away from health care.” Luigi Mastrangelo, head of the Lega sports department and political candidate for Salvini’s party, says this in an interview with The Breakfast Club on Radio Capital. «I’m not saying to take everything away from health care, but a little something can be dedicated to sport, since very little is always allocated to sport and a lot to health care. If it is true, as we have always said, that sport is good for us and makes us feel better, why do we need to take medicine if we can feel good simply by doing sports. We are all good at saying that sport is health, but then we spend little time on it. Sport must become an essential element of our daily life, we should be good at carving out an hour a day to devote to movement “, continues the former volleyball champion, who adds:” I am thinking above all of young people: sedentary lifestyle increases, they are moving away from sport, and this distance is reflected in the future of all our teams, from football to volleyball, throughout Italian sport. In order to win again, it will be necessary to immediately start bringing young people closer together, starting from grassroots sport, and investing ». Investments that Mastrangelo also need in structures: “There are some that remained thirty years ago, thanks to the PNRR we can put them in place, starting with schools.”
Elections, the Northern League’s proposal Mastrangelo: “Remove funds from health care to invest in sport”
Mastrangelo was one of the symbols of Italian volleyball, and for some years he approached politics after a meeting with Matteo Salvini: “One evening I was at one of his meetings, I was there because I respect the person and the politician, I think he is among politicians the only one who really wants the good of the Italians is a pure person close to the people. We met, there was an immediate mutual esteem “, remembers the Northern League candidate at Radio Capital,” Matteo is a sportsman and follows everything, he knew my past and this thing made me very happy. As the months and years went by, I presented him with my desire to take care of sports in the party, he immediately said yes to me and thus the sports department of the League was born, which did not exist. The League is a party by which I feel totally represented, a serious and merit-based party. If Matteo has given me this assignment it is because I deserve it ». A position, that of sports department head, which is the same one occupied in the Pd by a former coach of Mastrangelo, Mauro Berruto: “Together we spent wonderful moments and others less beautiful, we rejoiced and cried, we will wear two different jerseys and we will be against each other, but always for the good of Italian sport, ”says Mastrangelo. And when asked if he sees himself as a minister of sport, he replies: “I don’t have a political path like others who have held that position have had, but I am at the disposal of my party, I could take it into consideration”.
On sport we often talk about the lack of opportunity given to young athletes raised in Italy or born in Italy to foreign parents to compete for the blue colors, but on the ius soli Mastrangelo is with the League: “My line is that of the party, and the I totally marry “. He has no doubts when asked which great sportsman in history Salvini reminds him of: «I see him as Maradona. And Giorgia Meloni as Federica Pellegrini. Two great talents ». Today, among other things, the volleyball world championships begin in Poland and Slovenia: how does Italy get there? «This group has presented itself very well to the last Europeans, winning them. They are all young guys, they will certainly do well in this world championship. Fefè De Giorgi », says Mastrangelo,« has done a great job and is continuing with his program in view of the next Olympics. The team is potentially very strong and can do well, we will certainly fight for the podium ».
The Pd intervenes. «Mastrangelo claims that funds can be cut to health ‘which are many’. He does not surprise us since he is part of the party responsible for the disaster in Lombardy where the right-wing government canceled territorial medicine, impoverishing all health facilities. A disaster for all to see and where nothing is being done about general practitioners. Disconcerting ». says on Facebook the president of the senators of the Democratic Party Simona Malpezzi. But Mastrangelo specifies: “I note with bitterness that from the left, those who do not know in the least what the concrete life of people is, have already struggled to reply to my words: I intend to clarify that my idea, and that of the League, is based on a fundamental concept, namely that an adequate and calibrated investment in sport today also produces savings in health care tomorrow. Sport is physical and mental wellbeing: this is the message we must give to young people, not the squalid polemics of an election campaign ».