The championship of Serie B will start regularly on August 18 with a 20-team format. Therefore, the outcome of the pending appeals on the last two participants for the 2023/24 season will not be expected. This is the strong stance that the clubs of the cadet League wanted to take in the assembly staged in via Rosellini in Milan. “In this way i club wanted to give a strong message of certainty towards the value of football played, towards the fans and defending the reputation of Serie B put to the test by appeals resulting from obsolete rules and situations unrelated to Lega B”, explained the Lega.
The “Reggina case” and the final decision on Lecco
So August 18th the championship will start anyway, with the calendar already drawn up and probably not just with the X already present for the “Reggina case”but also a Y waiting for definitive decisions on Lecco, with Perugia and Brescia interested viewers. Decisions in this sense are expected in the next few days at the Tar, but there is the risk that the appeals will continue: however, the decision of Serie B was to keep going. “The calendar starts as planned, we established it. I think the FIGC is in agreement because they approved it, I don’t see where different ideas come from. Moving the dates would have been a problem. The championship starts, let’s hope it starts with all 20 teams“, commented the president of the Lega Serie B Mauro Balata. “We believe that the calendars must not only take precedence but must be protected. The real problem is this, a shorter path of justice would be needed to protect competitions, clubs and fans. Overnumbered? It’s not on the table. We have decided that we are 20 teams and we are starting with 20. These situations are bad for football, there is too much confusion,” she concluded.
“Pride to say enough to chaos”
Words also shared by other top managers of the cadet championship present at the meeting. “The decision is an exit of pride to say enough to the chaos,” he commented Frederick Merola, partner and councilor of Sudtirol elected today to the executive council of Lega Serie B (together with the president of FeralpiSalò Giuseppe Pasini and the CEO of Cittadella Mauro Michelini). “A decision also made for the over 12 million fans of the teams who have been silent to see this situation made up of appeals risking being subjected to the rash decisions of others. We are undergoing a situation that we are not to blame for,” concludes Merola.
“It’s an unpleasant situation for fans and insiders, it becomes difficult to plan the season. The league with still so many doubts is unpleasant. upstream solutions should be found to avoid this type of situation“, added the neo-patron of Ternana Nicola Guida.