Waiting for Serie A, Fiorentina almost beat the Italian bureaucracy

A structure built in less than four years is an event to celebrate. Without taking away the merits of Fiorentina, popular jubilation is the son of a country system that always seems to be terribly slow compared to announcements. In this case, however, everything went (almost) fine. The history speaks of how much progress has been made: on 9 October 2019 the purchase of new land was announced, while the construction site was opened in February 2021. A path which, despite some hitches between the pandemic and the increase in the cost of materials, went as fast as the American owners like it which, having set aside the project for a new stadium, has staked everything on the construction of its own sports centre.

United States versus Italy?

If you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re talking about Viola Park has become the team’s new home for a few days now: the Italian has started his training camp in the city and has everything to become a reference point in Italy and Europe. However, there is still no practicability to accommodate the public. Everything except one thing: the usability for opening to the public. An all-Italian paradox. Or maybe not.

Not an easy challenge for Rocco Commisso that he has to juggle two different ways of thinking. The ambitious purple president attempted to import the philosophy of “fast fast” in our country, a battle which he did not win but which accelerated the decisions of Florentine politics.

C’est l’Italie, ambitions run faster than the authorization times of a work and references to the operational concreteness of the state of New Jersey do not take hold: here there are other times, as respectable as they are annoying, but there is no need to bother Weber to talk about bureaucracy (which also exists in America). Let’s go back to today. While some fans regret the temperatures in Moena, everyone is united in complaining about the impossibility of seeing friendlies in the new stadium. Yeah, no one can go inside Viola Park.

Friendlies behind closed doors

Yesterday’s friendly against Parma was only visible on Dazn, a paradox for a structure created to be even closer to the city. The necessary authorizations to open to the public are missing and the purple management is bitter: after the slowdowns of the Covid period, everything seemed ready for the cut of ours to coincide with the start of the retreat. It didn’t happen that way.

The faults are not only on one side, the viola company itself makes use of professionals to anticipate possible bureaucratic problems, but the “conflict” between the provisions of the Superintendency and those of the Fire Brigade exploded just 48 hours after the opening. A story as trivial as it is complex: the supervisory commission for public entertainment has given safety requirements that require an exemption but the commission itself makes itself desired and the meetings slip from week to week. Meanwhile, the friendlies remain behind closed doors, the meeting of 7 July has been postponed to the 27th and the expected match with Catanzaro, newly promoted to Serie B, will once again be without fans.

Irony trumps reality

For now, irony wins in Florence. Photos of the new temporary parking lot “where cars can be parked and then not enter Viola Park” are all the rage on social media, others joke about the troubled history of this structure, some remember the rumor – which even alarmed the president – about the impossibility of being able to draw lines on the playing fields due to improbable landscape problems. In short, the boundary between irony and sarcasm resembles the difficulties Commisso has experienced since his arrival in Italy: investing in our country can become the affirmation of something that means its opposite, that is having to learn to know the limits of the possible. Like those of an open construction site retreat.