This is how Joe Tacopina 'killed' Spal for the third time in 21 years
The debts will remain his problem, but Ferrara goes from Serie A to Eccellenza in five years. The American acted without the knowledge of his collaborators, the mayor informed only at the last minute
Joe Tacopina has managed to alienate the fans in just a few years and to sink Spal, who will now have to start again from the Eccellenza
Ferrara, 7 June 2025 – They have killed the Spal, and it is the third time in 21 years, after Pagliuso 2005 and Butelli 2012. This time it's a cowboy who unseats her Joe, the Tacopina all promises and no roast. From an indefinite tomorrow (but it will take much, much longer than a day), we will tell ourselves that maybe it was better this way: cutting an unhealthy umbilical cord at the root to start again from the bottom with new premises.
But not today, anger prevails today, indignation and dismay reign. That Spal USA was now at risk of disappearing for corporate insolvencies it was clear: only an unexpected stroke of luck - wealthy members ready to buy the club or a casual promotion, given that there was no way out there about a star-spangled program... - could really relaunch its shares.
In C you only lose money, and that Joe and his investors' were not infinite had been clear for some time, given the waste that came in. What makes forever unforgivable Tacopina is the veil of silence almost to the point of complete defeat. The American ownership had accustomed them to arriving with dollars at the last moment, and already this year the team had paid dearly for "going long" the previous spring. But after that, that type of apprehension had not been detected in Via Copparo and the deadlines had been met, so much so that up to 48 hours after the disaster, confidence and calm reigned at the headquarters.
Only on Wednesday evening, following of Follano's reckless fundraising on Linkedin then withdrawn, it became visible that the king was secretly undressing, without the knowledge even of his closest collaborators.
A calm before the storm that has prevented the institutions themselves from trying to take action to solve the problem: when Alan Fabbri he was informed, he was already too late. So Spal dies again. It awaits them in the best of hypothesesand an Excellence to be undertaken with a different corporate structure and perhaps without brandIt is a category ridden with the right enthusiasm by Sant'Agostino, Comacchio and Mesola, but which for Ferrara is historic low point, never so low in a story that has lasted more than a century. And even that future today seems nebulous and not a given, if we don't run and find money quickly. He started with great pomposity to make Spal the new Atalanta, Tacopina was only capable of one relegation, three hard-fought saves, a penalty and a middle finger to an angry fans on the day of the relegation to Serie C, of which he was unable to understand the normal frustration from unfulfilled promises.
He managed to split and alienate fans and the environment, inflicting on the square the ferocious disappointment of being cancelled from football just after the only day of relief in his experience, the 2-0 salvation against Milan Futuro: all of this, throwing millions, and amusing themselves with ravings about an unlikely comeback until a few hours before the final knockout bell. debts now they will remain his problem.
Spal, on the other hand, is left with the dust of this supersonic dive: from Serie A to Eccellenza in five years is easily a world record. Not to mention the ash in the fist of the employees and of the Spal world's induced effects, as well as the imminent gutting of the youth sector. Two under teams are engaged in the national finals of their category, knowing that after them, nothing.
And what do we tell those young people, Tacopina? Joe has made a disaster. Many think it's a revenge on an environment that rejected him. More likely, it's business reasons. But how could Joe win elsewhere, given the ever-revolving door management yardstick? And if there were no dollars, how could he explain the no to the million offered by Toro di Vagnati for the future resale of Gineitis? What was the plan? There are many questions still unanswered. A perfect crime of the relegation-to-D-without-repechage-due-to-penalty type was feared: that was foiled in extremis, and now an even harder and more sinking stone falls on your head.
But the only great beauty of the four-year period, that is those ten thousand, those moving ten thousand at the Mazza against Milan, today ideally multiplied by ten if not by a hundred, they will rise again. Beauty is never lost, it never dies. rise again.