We took a few hours to reflect, the day after Joseph Tacopina’s press conference. A useless event in terms of content, which resulted in a blackmail that, with great benevolence, we want to define surreal.
We will not be short. The matter deserves to be explained and investigated in a very detailed way, for the good of our SPAL
PREMISE
When the Colombarini family and President Mattioli took office, we asked for two things: respect for roles and transparency. We had them, the concepts were simple and clear for all interlocutors.
We did the same with Joseph Tacopina when he arrived in Ferrara.
THE ROLE OF THE CURVE
our role, as a curve, is to be the fans.
The fans ensure that the sporting, historical, cultural and social heritage of SPAL is preserved and valued and, lo and behold, TIFANO.
We have honored this role to the fullest of our potential this season, with a massive presence at home and away, despite disappointing sporting results. We staged several monumental choreographies, conceiving and assembling them until late at night, despite a depressing ranking position. We have made ourselves available to promote and participate in the charitable initiatives of local associations. We have made donations to disabled children in our province. We have organized aggregative and cultural initiatives, dedicating our commitment and skills to the city’s social fabric. And again, on 9-10-11 June, despite the relegation to Serie C, we will organize the Curva Ovest party under the walls, at the foot of the bulwark of S. Pietro. We have demonstrated with facts that we never give up, and we won’t now. Indeed, we will relaunch, even in Serie C.
We did all of this just out of love for SPAL, not to promote our image as the current owner claims.
Going back to our role, that of fans, only in the last home match of the season, after the goal conceded by Parma which mathematically condemned us to Serie C, did we contest the team and the coach, but above all the one we believe is primarily responsible for this football season . The one who for two years has boasted of winning qualities by making inadmissible promises, even for a “pessimistic” environment like ours, in his interpretations.
It is part of our role and we have done it, in a more or less colorful way, followed and shared by over three thousand people between the curve and other sectors of the stadium.
In the same way it has been happening for almost a century in all stadiums in Italy: whoever chooses to do this lucrative job should know it well.
For these actions, which, we repeat, belong to our role as organized fans, we answer solely and exclusively to the Curva, the SPAL fans, our city and the Italian law, which is far too strict on this type of dynamic.
Certainly not to Joseph Tacopina, who, forgetting the honors and duties of his role, after having attempted to attack some fans in the stands, showed the middle finger to an entire fan base. A fan base that over the course of two disappointing and bankruptcy championships has supported the team he presides over with unconditional dedication and love. And that Friday, as always, will be in Pisa for the shirt and the colours, as if it were a final, even when relegated.
BLACKMAIL
After this episode, the owner of SPAL called a press conference in which he linked the survival of this city’s sporting, cultural and social heritage to an apology to be received from no one knows who, given that the objection was made to him by several thousand people at the peak of their mental faculties.
He has tied not only the existence of the first team to a well-deserving bullshit, but the lives of several dozen employees, who support their families with their work at SPAL.
It has bound the future of hundreds of boys and girls from the youth teams to childhood dynamics, disorienting all Ferrara families who want to raise their children in the values of sport and team spirit, and they want to do it in our city.
It has linked the survival and future of women’s teams to personal pride, of dozens and dozens of girls who courageously emancipated themselves, fighting like lions and winning a lot in a sport that culturally has always been conceived for men only.
It bound the respect towards the hundreds of small and medium-sized companies in Ferrara which, as sponsors, have financially supported SPAL to apologies for a legitimate and predictable chorus
He has linked to his ego respect for the immense sporting, cultural and social heritage of which he is the leader, from which he receives immense honors and towards which he has equally immense and imperative obligations.
It bound the survival and respect for all these social components of the city of Ferrara to the receipt of our apologies during a meeting. And trying, once again, to escape one’s duties, one’s role and one’s responsibilities, trying to unload them on us.
FOR ALL THESE REASONS, WE WON’T MAKE AN APOLOGY TO JOSEPH TACOPINA AND AT THE SAME TIME WE DON’T CLAIM TO RECEIVE THEM: WE ARE NOT CHILDREN AND WE WON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT, WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN SHIT BUT ONLY IN SPAL AND ITS FUTURE.
THE MEETING
Focusing on the dynamics of what has happened in recent days, let’s also address the topic of the meeting requested of us by the SPAL owner
In light of the sense of responsibility we feel towards the SPAL first team, towards the boys and children of the youth sector and their families, towards the girls of the women’s teams and their families, towards the employees of the SPAL Company and their families and towards the Ferrarese companies that act as sponsors (all duties that should be within the President), we agree to participate in the proposed meeting.
But on our terms: we refuse to do it as Curva Ovest, as a single entity, both because we don’t have the right to address the issue of SPAL’s survival as the only interlocutors, and because we don’t want to give rise to a childish meeting, which would end up with only competing to see who has the longest cock. It doesn’t interest us at all.
Of our interest are only and exclusively the good and the future of SPAL, and Joseph Tacopina will have to answer for this. But not for us, AS FOR THE CITY OF FERRARA, as his role requires.
For this reason, if you wish to meet us, we will extend the invitation to the “SPAL Club Coordination Center” (already informed and adhering) in representation of those fans who for years have been grinding kilometer after kilometer like the Curva, and to the Mayor of Ferrara Alan Fabbri ( for which this press release already serves as an official invitation), representing unorganized fans and all the social parties in Ferrara involved in this senseless blackmail.
And we won’t talk about who has to apologize to whom, BUT ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY OF SPAL AND ITS FUTURE.
We await a response from the property in a short time to organize ourselves in this sense.
West Curve Ferrara.