Tommaso GhirardiParma president Tommaso Ghirardi has put the club up for sale and is quitting the sport after his team were denied a place in the Europa League following a tax dispute, he said yesterday.
Parma qualified for Europe for the first time since 2006 after pipping Torino to sixth place in Serie A on the final day of the season. Yet the Italian Olympic Committee stripped them of their place yesterday and handed it Torino due to an unpaid tax bill of €300,000.
The decision enraged Ghirardi, who called a news conference yesterday to rail against the sporting authorities. He also said he was quitting sport.
“You have managed to kick me out of sport. You’ve managed to make me abandon my biggest passion,” he said.
“You should all be ashamed. I’m finished with football, finished with sport. I’m going back to my little village, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves for what you’ve done.
“The club is up for sale. I started here with nothing and have built something important.
“Now it’s for someone else to show the same passion I have these last few years, to bring respect to the city and the fans.”
Ghirardi took over in 2007 with the club in a financial mess following the bankruptcy scandal that engulfed former owners and dairy giant Parmalat.
“To take away what we achieved on the pitch... who is it that judges me? People who have never paid a euro to play sport, they’re people who have always lived off the back of it.
“These are the people who judge me,” added Ghirardi.