Angelo Binaghi, in an exclusive interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport, claimed the work he has done and continues to do at the helm of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation.
It is impossible to deny the growth of a movement, the male one, which for years has not produced results of this importance. Victories in the Masters 1000, Grand Slam finals and qualifications for the Tournaments of the Masters: Italian tennis is now back to dreaming big.
He told: “I know, I’m a heretic. But heresy applied to ourselves gives excellent results. I’m not saying it, it’s data processed by third parties. I saved tennis. I remember the beginning, everyone ran away from the federation.
The Italian Open lost 3-4 billion a year, there was a lack of victories and practitioners.Today we are talking about a reality that has quadrupled its membership in twenty years, employs more than a thousand people when in the past it did not reach a hundred. I don’t want to customize. I just represented a new venue: our money, it will give us opposing philosophies.”
Binaghi recalled the controversy that arose last year when a decision had to be made on the presence of Russians and Belarusians.
Binaghi: “I saved tennis”
Binaghi then said: “You should ask Coni. And Pasqua, I would like to avoid controversy and I am a small manager in the suburbs. I only remember that a year ago Andrey Rublev and Daniil Medvedev someone said they shouldn’t have played in Rome to respect the dictates of the IOC, while now it seems to me that we are going in the opposite direction.
We have been consistent in our small way and, by taking a different path, we would have jeopardized the very survival of the Internationals, a heritage of Italian sport.
CONI candidate? Impossible. My exact opposite philosophy, for better or for worse. Where I see white, Coni sees black. I represent the attempt to create the most efficient system possible. The world of Italian sport is built upside down, efficiency is disturbing, we need to split up, divide.”
You must be logged in to post a comment Login