Vincenzo Spadafora, the Italian government minister for sport and youth policies, has hit out at the media for their extensive coverage of the lack of Serie A football amid the ongoing global Coronavirus pandemic.
Serie A has been on hold for over a month now due to the pandemic and almost every day media outlets across the country are speculating about the possible resumption of the campaign. Football at every other level is also on hold and all other sporting activities in the country are too.
“The media are focusing on football, on whether the season resumes or not, but sport isn’t just football and football doesn’t only correspond to Serie A,” he explained to gathered reporters outside of the Italian senate earlier on today.
“After this emergency we’ll have to reorganise this sector, to guarantee sports workers a bonus that allows them to be treated on par with many others. We need to start again, given the huge economic and social value of sport.”
Spadafora then went on to insist that whilst they want to restart seasons, health is the main priority during these extraordinary circumstances.
“There’s great desire on our part to restart, but the first objective is to guarantee protection of the health of our citizens.”
Spadafora, who has been in office since 2018, then went on to discuss the possible resumption of training at the beginning of next month with a view to matches resuming in the weeks after that.
“After that, it’s our intention to study a programme that allows teams to start training again from May 4 and then we can think about resuming the leagues, while always prioritising the health of the professionals.”