Football
Ben Gladwell, Italy correspondent 9y

Sampdoria president blasts stadium costs after postponement of derby

Sampdoria president Massimo Ferrero has hit out at the way the Stadio Luigi Ferraris is run after Saturday's derby against Genoa, who share the ground with them, was called off because of a waterlogged pitch.

Ferrero said the clubs were paying "100,000 euros per game for a service... which is really worth a lot less" after no covers were put on the playing surface despite forecasts warning of heavy rain throughout Saturday.

That led to the game being postponed until Tuesday, and a frustrated Ferrero told ANSA: "The truth is, we're paying 100,000 euros per game for a service offered to us by a consortium appointed by the city council which is really worth a lot less.

"I've asked the city council if we can run the stadium, which is currently decrepit and does not conform with the standards -- and, to tell the truth, even the mayor agreed."

#INSERT type:image caption:Massimo Ferrero said the stadium was 'decrepit' and that the clubs should run it. END#

But his Genoa counterpart Enrico Preziosi said that even covering the pitch until the teams arrived would not have averted the postponement.

"It's nothing to do with the covers," La Gazetta dello Sport reported him as saying. "Even the Lega [Serie A] confirmed that they would not have helped.

"There's no stadium which would have been able to cope with such an event. It wasn't just rain -- it was a deluge with bombs of water. It was impossible to play.

"The problem was not being able to play in the right conditions. It's been 10 years that we've been saying that the pitch at the Marassi is unplayable."

He added that he was talking to Ferrero about the running of the stadium, and said he expected "things to move a step further this week."

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