Virtus, Zanetti relaunches and dismisses Baraldi: "Turning the page: we are solid and aiming high"

The President Massimo Zanetti remains at the head of the Virtus kicking out Luca Baraldi, a long-time collaborator. Quando la coppia scioglie is the title of an old Italian comedy film starring Enrico Montesano.

This time there is nothing comical because money in general is a very serious thing. Even more so if it is used to feed a Virtus that is a heritage of Bologna because it ignites the passion of thousands of fans. It was precisely the money that ruined the idyll.

To get the current Juventus CEO out, Zanetti used a sensational gesture: to have two other directors resign, Giuseppe Sermasi and Nicola Gualandi, causing the board of directors to fall. Yesterday, then, in a long conference he illustrated and motivated this strategy.

"It was time to turn the page," explains the Juventus number one, "and with our resignations we will hold a shareholders' meeting where it will be decided that I will remain as president and Baraldi will go his own way. In his place as CEO there will be Marco Comellini, who is a long-time collaborator of mine, while the general manager Paolo Ronci will follow the sporting part."

Going further, the reasons for the divorce are discovered. "One of the things that hurt me the most was the closure of the women's section. It weighed 700 thousand euros on a budget that was initially 23 million euros, but that seemed to be the problem. Afterwards we had to plan four more capital increases because Baraldi's accounts were never good. By making this change, no one loses out, on the contrary".

In reality, the problems began in May when Segafredo announced that it would no longer sponsor the Black V, but Zanetti's intervention partially made those who are managing the company that produces coffee backtrack and from then on the rumor that the minority partner Carlo Gherardi will sooner or later attempt to take over Virtus has strengthened.

"Now I have new partners who have rightly decided not to invest in sports anymore and I am already moving to find a series of sponsors for an important club like Virtus. When I chose to bring an entrepreneur into the company I did it because I wanted to consolidate the club. Gherardi is a friend who decided to give us a hand and I shared everything with him, even though he had asked me to wait a week before resigning. I, on the other hand, decided to do it immediately because things had been going in a direction I didn't like for some time. Even the new governance structure was a common choice".

The impression of Virtus' financial difficulty was reinforced by the club's alleged slowness in moving forward on the market, with each negotiation then dying out at the last mile.

"We have Justin Holiday now, a player on probation. He's an important career and it's up to our coach to decide whether to keep him or not. He's not a dead rat as some would have you believe."

Ironically, while the conference was taking place, Baraldi signed the economic contract with the former Denver Nuggets player, who is weighed down by Ivanovic's opinion, while in the evening the Juventus CEO, who remained in charge for ordinary administration, said goodbye to the environment.

"I have too much respect for my professionalism and too much love for Virtus, which I helped bring to the top of European basketball, to comment, as many ask me, on the words of Dr. Massimo Zanetti, whom I thank for having made me experience great emotions together with the entire world of the V Nere".