Mancini pledges loyalty to the Viola

[Elvis Pressley]

Mancini pledges loyalty to ailing Fiorentina

Tuesday 21st August 2001

Fiorentina coach Roberto Mancini vowed on Tuesday to see out his contract at the debt-ridden club, after press suggestions that he was courting outside offers. "These lies damage me, the team and the people of Florence," he roared.

The Fiorentina board must find £34 million by October 15, or see the club declared bankrupt. But Mancini claimed he would put those implications to the back of his mind ahead of the Serie A kick-off.

"If I was going to quit Fiorentina, it would have happened two months ago, at the beginning of this difficult situation," he said.

"I have a contract until September 2002 and I am going to respect it. I trust the team and the work we are doing, as the players do as well."

But the future of star striker Enrico Chiesa at the Artemio Franchi stadium remains in doubt, despite general manager Luciano Luna's success in persuading him to stay.

And there was little cheer on Tuesday from two of the club's potential buyers, who declared it was their intention to await the court's verdict rather than jump in now with rescue packages.

Sharham Tootoonchi, manager of the Italian-Arab group interested in a deal, said: "If Fiorentina are in Serie A, we will pay for a Serie A club. Otherwise, we will offer a Serie B price.

Roman building contractor Luigi Pulsoni, who plans to transform the Artemio Franchi into a major commercial centre should he succeed in buying the club, said: "If the squad becomes too impoverished, our group could change its mind about a deal.

"Fiorentina would be an enfeebled team without Enrico Chiesa. We can only see what will happen."

[Yacoob]

This is very bad, this easily means that the Arab-Italian group is more interested on the financial side of Fiorentina than the sporting side, a thing which means that they will be more interested in the amount of profit they will make out of the team than they are with how well the team will play or improve. I guess we should just wait and see how things are going, but for now, i think it's quite bad that the group doesn't seem like a good buyer, and if VCG found a solution to the troubles I'll stick with him over that group.

[B@tigol]

i don't think mancio is a very good coach, he's lack of experience n' tactical knowledge.i prefer trap though

[Yacoob]

That's quite true, I always thought that bringing an unexperienced coach to Fiorentina won't help the team, we have many troubles on the management, even before all this financial troubles came into spotlight. To me, his behaviour, tactical choices and his emphasis on (entertainment over result)shows that he's still a beginner who still tries ti find his own style. For the good of both Mancini and Fiorentina, I think he should leave, that's a better thing for him, but the only thing that will really harm us, is if we couldn't find a good replacement for him, I mean who wants to coach a team under debts, with crap managing board?!

[B@tigol]

we need those coach who is cool n' cunning, like u never know what he's thinking n' he can trouble those better clubs with tactic, mancio certainly can't do that now. a good example is terim, just look at those game that we won under him, but he's unfaithful to a club

[Yacoob]

If we still have Trap, it would have been a totally different story. It was unfortunate to see Terim go like that. I still think the best coaches to replace him were Lippi or Cuper. Lippi is a great tactician, and he lead Juventus to win scudetto, I'm sure he could do the same with Fiorentina, if he was given the time, and enough money. Cuper can bring the best our of any player, which is about the same as Terim, and he can turn violas crap players Rossito and co into some good players. Both coaches were actually ready, we could have used anybody until the end of the season and got Cuper or Lippi, but VCG just wanted to get someone who will always obey him, so we got on with Mancini.

[B@tigol]

i hope mancini could learn something from the preseason match n' just save our team, he's not great, but maybe with a bit of luck, we might do it cause now luna won't fire him, he seem to like mancio