The FIGC chief Gabriele Gravina has claimed football couldn’t wait for the vaccine and vows to honour those who ‘have worked hard, those who are no longer with us and those who suffer in mourning’.
Serie A will resume on June 20, with the Coppa Italia scheduled to reopen football in Italy this month, and the FIGC President insisted that the industry couldn’t keep still and wait for everything to blow over.
“Football starts again because it’s a hope for the whole country. The fans are right, and I understand them,” Gravina told Il Romanista. “I’m the first football fan. But how can you think that when the country starts up again, football should stand still?
“How can you think that if you don’t resume now, you can resume in August or September? If you are unable to resume today, by coexisting somehow with the virus, then there’s the risk that the contagion might spread again in September, so what would you do?
“Are you waiting for the vaccine? And when would it arrive? In the meantime, the 100,000 people working in the sector. Do we abandon them and the 12 manufacturers? At the international level, everyone is starting up again, I didn’t want to write another title like the one in L’Equipe: ‘Like fools’.
“We won’t let them say it. And we will do something to honour those who have worked hard, those who are no longer with us and those who suffer in mourning.”