Joe Tacopina dreams of bringing Italian club SPAL back to Serie A, a sports league that enjoys growing popularity among American investors and fans.
From Ferrara, a Renaissance city 48 km northeast of Bologna, Tacopina, a lawyer defending criminals by training, spoke about his ambitions since taking over as president of SPAL and shared what he has learned in more than a decade as the most sensible manager of 4 Italian companies. Football clubs
In 2011, when it was rare for American investors to take an interest in Italian soccer, Tacopina was part of the first proprietary organization to buy AS Roma, becoming the first American club in Italy’s elite.
He served on the board of AS Roma as vice-president for 4 years before moving to Bologna and then Venice where he set the enviable record of being the first president of Italian football to win 3 consecutive promotions (one in Bologna in 2014/15). and twice in two years in Venice from 2015 to 2017).
In the summer of 2021, Tacopina took over SPAL, a new bankruptcy in his adventure in Italian football, which he explained in our last interview as “one of the most undervalued houses in all sports”.
All those years spent in AS Rome, Bologna, Venice and SPAL have allowed Tacopina, a Brooklyn venue of Italian origin, to acquire invaluable wisdom about the pitfalls of the Italian professional football system.
“Understand that you come from global. This global is like no other, especially the global North American business. It’s just different,” he warned Tacopina. Si you come here thinking you’re going to break molds, doing everything that’s done in the United States, they’re going to bully you. And it’s not going to end well.
Tacopina, 56, firmly believes that experienced American investors can make a difference in a soccer formula, that of Italy, which lacks monetary field in the control of many clubs. This knowledge, however, will need to be implemented carefully, avoiding the threat of getting stuck in the desperate attempt to challenge the prestige quo.
“If you come up with new concepts, as I do with my North American sports business model, and you try to marry those concepts with the cultural establishments and traditions that exist here, and you don’t get disappointed with that apple basket. “, then you have a chance to do well,” he concluded.
In the first 15 months at SPAL, Tacopina estimates that he and his partners contributed around 20 million euros ($20 million) through Tacopina Italian Football Investment Srl. These resources financed, among other things, the renovation of the stadium, a real transfer of assets with dormitories for the youth players and, last February, the acquisition of one hundred percent of the club’s shares.
However, like most Italian football clubs, Tacopina explained that SPAL continues to feel the financial repercussions of the pandemic. With sustainability remaining the club’s top sensible priority, he said SPAL has taken significant cost-cutting measures for the 2021/22 season, with the pay bill with 30% relief for the ongoing Serie B campaign.
To be competitive in the league while relying on a limited budget (Estensi is ranked 13th out of 20 in Serie B for club market value), Tacopina and his staff have combined a roster largely made up of players SPAL owns or has an obligation. Buy: This strategy, Taquuna explained, aims to instill in players a sense of belonging to the SPAL family, with the aim of building the kind of loyalty he believes is a must-have element for good fortune in such a competitive environment. level.
“It’s about how much we spend,” Tacopina said. That’s how you spend it. “
In short, his concept of structuring a football club was promoted through teams such as Atalanta and Ajax, which over the years have managed to overcome themselves at national and European level depending on modest economic resources and, above all, avoiding red.
After a slow start to the 2022/23 Serie B season, SPAL has opted to replace the head coach position, as the club announced with an official note a few weeks ago. Cup champion Daniele De Rossi, one of AS Roma’s top midfielders at the time Tacopina was the club’s vice-president.
“He’s one of my closest friends, I’ve known him for thirteen years,” Tacuna said. “He’s a born leader, he’s a winner. “
De Rossi cites the club’s plans, ambitions and fans, as well as the president’s personality, as the main reasons he accepted SPAL’s offer for his first position as head coach. (Roberto Mancini’s assistant coach to De Rossi in the Italian team that won UEFA Euro 2020 last year).
Under De Rossi’s guidance, SPAL hopes to bring consistency to their effects and move up the Serie B standings, which lately puts them in position after 12 games.
“I discovered humanity, the great devotion of the players and a serious club with an education center that forces you to work 20 hours a day with amenities that would be the envy even of Serie A clubs,” De Rossi said in a written interview. “We (De Rossi and Tacopina) talked about an expansion project and a clear path ahead in the near future. “