If you want drama, then there’s usually plenty available in the Italian press and today it’s the turn of Corriere dello Sport when covering former Tottenham director of football Fabio Paratici.
They cover the former Tottenham man today as he seeks to return to football following his two-year ban and restart at 53-years-old.
The newspaper argues the case that the former Tottenham director should have the right to turn the page and start his career again after serving his time for false accounting at Juventus.
They state that in any ‘moderately developed country’ those who have served their sentences should get ‘the famous second chance’ and that includes Paratici. They think he deserves it even more, though, as he hasn’t complained about it.
In fact, he ‘laid his head on the scaffold’ and ‘accepted the shame’, even resigning from Tottenham, although he wasn’t sure the sentence was valid. He has ‘endured in silence’ and, as far as the newspaper is concerned, deserves praise for that.
Now football should reward him with a leap of fairness. The game hands that to suspended players, so why not the managers at the top of the game as well?
More praise comes as they argue that unlike some in similar situations who ‘embark on the thriving profession of martyrdom’ with books, explosive interviews and turning their ‘conspiracy-related victimhood into a perpetual income’ Paratici has gone the other way.
He is seizing the opportunity to start again, avoid the mistakes of the past and become a more prudent and reliable manager for whoever wants to hire him. Corriere argue that if football is fair, he will be given that chance.
They even turn to the Bible to prove their point, explaining how ‘Our Lord took the worst of the scoundrels hanging there to the heavenly pavilions, rehabilitating him in the 98th minute, just seconds before the most final whistle ever.’
We’ll let you decide which side of the fence you sit on when it comes to Paratici, but at least as far as Corriere are concerned, he’s earned his second chance. Whether football agrees, remains to be seen.
