We have all experienced moments of intense embarrassment, such as a match delay due to forgotten jerseys or a team player randomly assigned at the last minute to take the whistle, due to a lack of decent organization by our club. Each time, we defend ourselves by pointing to the folklore of amateur sport (and even departmental in our case), light years away from the rigor of professional championships.
To twist this postulate, we advise you to read the history of the Trapani basketball team, promoted and semi-finalist in Serie A (Italian D1) last season after finishing 2nd in the regular phase. Currently 13th in the transalpine elite, the Sicilian club is in the grip of enormous financial difficulties. How much? He showed up on Saturday with just three professional players (plus four youngsters) for an official Serie A match against Trento.
Four minutes of play and 24 free throws conceded
This scenario with seven players on the scoresheet is already not trivial, but it quickly turned into a ludicrous one, since the three players under contract decided to leave the field after less than ten seconds of play. In the process, their young teammates took care to be excluded in turn for five personal fouls. So much so that after 4 minutes and 11 seconds of play, the referees had to stop the match, at 26-11 for Trento, including 24 free throws conceded by Trapani.
And for good reason, the regulations require a match to be concluded with at least two players, and only one player from the Sicilian team remained in play from the first quarter…. Four days earlier, Trapani had almost done as well in the first leg of the Champions League play-off, in Bulgaria against the Israelis of Hapoel Holon: only five players had made the trip.
Already 10 points less for administrative sanctions
Result: 38-5 for Hapoel Holon and the match was stopped after 7’32”, again due to a lack of available players. So, why did we arrive at such a “farce”, as the Italian media (legitimately) describe it? This is a funny arm wrestling between the president of Trapani, Valerio Antonini, the National Federation and the Basketball League. Because in recent months, the Sicilian club has been heavily penalized for various financial irregularities, while Valerio Antonini has been suspended for two years.
Obviously, the athlete no longer follows, with a workforce decimated by the massive departures of players observing the untenable situation behind the scenes, but also due to injuries and suspensions. With therefore climax this parody of a match against Trento on Saturday, which will cost the club 250,000 euros, given the too few professional players lined up at kick-off.
Faced with this impasse, the authorities want to decide this Monday the future of Trapani, whose management refuses to forfeit these matches despite the surreal conditions of the moment. There is little doubt that the club, which already has 10 penalty points in the standings (hence 13th place despite a sporting record of 10 wins and 5 defeats), will be excluded from Serie A.
Players’ association demands ‘respect’
“Call it farce, shame, embarrassment, buffoonery, plague the Italian daily The Daily Fact. These are all apt terms to define what the Trapani Shark continues to do. Against Hapoel Holon, it was already a global humiliation. Continuing like this is torture and makes no sense. »
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La Giba, the association of professional players, is on the same line, via a press release: “We demand respect for the athletes of Trapani. We do not understand the reasons for this obstinacy in wanting to play these indecent encounters at all costs, which do not respect the minimum rules of fairness of competition. We appeal to the club so that a solution is found immediately to put an end to what is becoming the shame of basketball and all of Italian sport.”
