The farcical case of Virtus Entella: a 'ghost' club without a league to play in

Italy’s Serie B was plunged into chaos by three pre-season bankruptcies and Entella, who had hoped to profit, now find themselves in limbo between the second and third tiers

On Tuesday morning Gabriel Cleur and the rest of the Virtus Entella players, coaches and staff will set out on an away trip that feels like a last resort. At the end of the 290-mile journey from Chiavari, their home town in Liguria, to Rome, they will alight at the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC) and will not leave until they have received some answers. They plan a form of sit-in protest and the crux of their complaint only scratches the surface of a shambolic state of affairs that has left Italy’s lower leagues in turmoil. Why, they want to know, do they not have a division to play in when the season is already six weeks old?

“Never in my life did I think I’d be directly involved in a situation like this,” says Cleur, a 20-year-old full-back from Australia. Two weeks ago he was sent off in Entella’s first match of the Serie C season, a 3-1 win at Gozzano, but that detail barely feels relevant now. They have not played since then and, if they have their way, will not fulfil any further fixtures in the third tier. Entella believe they are entitled to a place in this season’s Serie B and their matches have, as a result, been postponed indefinitely. The problem is that the FIGC, Italy’s football association, are yet to confirm that they agree. No decision is expected until 9 October and until then Entella are out on a limb: a ghost club with no games to play, training every day to no end, livelihoods up in the air while Italy’s arcane judicial system grinds towards an uncertain conclusion.

Continue reading...

from Football | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Nczct5