“With all the difficulties of the case and the absence of the institutions, we are giving and will continue to give our best”: said Claudia Cintolesi, president of PFM
We receive and publish the note of Claudia Cintolesi, president of Women’s Basketball Montecatini, regarding the words of the president of Coni Toscana Simone Cardullo.
THE WORDS OF CLAUDIA CINTOLESI
As president of the Montecatini Women’s Basketball I would like to point out some things read in the Pistoia Sport article in an interview with Mr Cardullo, president of Coni Toscana and for years Regional President of the Italian Basketball Federation, and I apologize in advance if I’m not “politically correct” because we consider ourselves honest workers who have been serving for over 20 years in the maintenance and continuation of a company operating only in the female sector which has seen the light back in 1953. I start with a small but important premise: PFM has been the satellite company of Nico Basket Feminine for 5 seasons now and lends its members to the aforementioned for participation in the U19, U17, U15 youth championships and also for the senior team participating in the Serie B championship, therefore numbers and reasoning must be taken into consideration as the only female reality in the area that shares projects and objectives for the basketball and personal growth of its members.
But let’s start by analyzing some sentences read: “The female counterpart who is incapable of having a functioning and representative movement”. In the season that has just ended we have Frparticipated in the championships of Serie B, Serie C, Under 19, Under 17, Under 15 (The under 13s were signed up and then withdrawn but certainly not due to lack of athletes).
“The few present – and he mentions the names of PFM and Nico BF – as if the two companies were different realities, are lacking in quality and quantity”. The statement is disparaging and disrespectful towards the clubs but above all towards our girls, who have instead had a year full of satisfactions and goals achieved. All our teams have reached the second phase which gave them the opportunity to compete for the regional titlethe two Senior teams, stuffed with youth from the nursery, maintained the category without problems, finally our youth teams achieved these results of Tuscan champions under 18 3×3 and Tuscan champions under 16 3×3, the latter confirming the title won also last year (and we are only in the second edition).
Furthermore, among our girls, there is a 2006 member on loan to Lucca (SerieA1) and around the national team, a 2008 member summoned to the selections of the u16 national team and present at all the rallies of the Tuscany selection, some 2007/08/09 members within the Blue Projecta 2009 member on loan to PFF, with which she won the U14 regional title, U15 regional title, runner-up in the U15 national finals and winner of the Under 14 Italian Cup. year commitment and attachment to the shirt, therefore certain statements strongly damage their commitment, self-esteem and the credibility of the work done from companies that are struggling to do everything to make them grow in a serene and professional environment.
Let’s talk about quantity: it feels more like an own goal than a criticism. Basketball in Tuscany in terms of number of members is only the fourth sport on a par with other regions such as Umbria and Abruzzo but behind Emilia, Friuli, Marche, Campania, Sardinia, Veneto and Lombardy (CONI data) so perhaps I would ask a few questions he has led the movement in Tuscany in recent decades. At a national level, the number of female members of the basketball federation is around a mere 14% of the total number of members (CONI FSN DSA tables), not exactly a comforting result for judging the work of others. And in Valdinievole, with the data you provided, the 90 girls are a little more than the national average. Nothing has been done at the federal level in recent years to increase the number of members, everything is on the shoulders of the sports clubs, that even every year that passes they find themselves battling with new rules that are often confusing, decidedly contrary to even common sense.
Again according to Mr. Cardullo (Coni regional president in office) one of the causes for the low number of members is the little attention of companies to the school world, but maybe he doesn’t know that the sports projects proposed by Coni have started since 2018, which have effectively excluded local sports clubs from participating in promotional activities in primary classes, in addition to the almost three years of almost inactivity due to the virus. But then how do other sports have increased their members? Perhaps they have federations behind them that over the years have been able to promote and invest and are now reaping the fruits (see volleyball or rugby)
How do you plan to help the women’s sector canceling the U13 championship in May twice without waiting to see the total number of teams registered in October? How can we think of helping a women’s sector to grow if the Federation does not understand that having an under 13 championship (the first championship at a competitive level) with transfers of more than 260 km is detrimental to the whole movement and certainly leads to the loss of members (males of the usual age have trips of up to 30 km)? What aid or support have Tuscan companies received in recent years? He has read that these days are disappeared from the National scene Le Mura Lucca in A1 and PF Florence A2 won’t he re-register for the championship but will he restart from Serie B?
What strategies have been implemented to promote basketball? Minibasketball parties have been just self-celebratory events for years when they should be purely promotional events. There are no sports festivals that involve everyone, a few years ago minibasketball subscribers were given the basketball player’s diary, then we moved on to the basketball player’s notebook, then nothing. We have been calling for new reforms for years: lowering of baskets, suitable balls and the abolition of the rule according to which a registered player can continue to play with boys both in u13 and in u14, are counterproductive rules that push away rather than encourage to continue the path with a female club.
Does Mr. Cardullo know that in u14 the boys use the ball n°7, and the same should be done by a girl who will always play with a smaller one in her life??? His call for closeness to the institutions it should be used by you to streamline, find, recommend solutions to modernize, secure, improve sports facilities, perhaps starting right from the Valdinievole where the Monsummano plant looks like the Colosseum.
I conclude that I am very proud of the work we are doing, honored to do it since 2007, I am even more satisfied to do it together with the President Nerini of Nico Basket, with whom we share projects and values and I am thrilled to have so many families following us and they entrust us with their daughters who are the fuel for this movement, and I want to throw them a scoop: on July 7, the Montecatini Women’s Basketball turns 70, we are the longest-lived women’s basketball club in Tuscany (also recognized by the Assi Giglio Rosso Study and Documentation Center of Florence in the last census carried out) in business in the area since 1953 (without ever going bankrupt), pink rib of the Sporting Club 1949, and for this anniversary starting from September there will be events and initiatives dedicated to all our girls: come and visit us, we are Montecatini and you can find us in the gym.
Claudia Cintolesi
2023-07-09 19:31:59
#Cardullos #words #offensive #disparaging
