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Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini remains hopeful of selling the Sicilian club in the coming weeks after making already his first managerial change of the new season, after just two games. Zamparini, who was responsible for almost 60 coaching changes in 29 years as club owner, made eight coaching changes last season. He has just released Davide Ballardini, who was already sacked by him last season, but returned for the final few games of the season to keep them in Serie A, and replaced him with Roberto De Zerbi. He said he hopes that will be the last change he makes with new owners on the horizon. "I'm not going to be president anymore within a month," he told Radio 24. "I'm negotiating with two groups to enter into the club. "The [Chinese] government has given input to invest in European football to import football to China and they are making pragmatic decisions to make investments. "I prefer the Chinese group because they don't just want to make money out of football, but they want to make investments. "It's not only that I prefer them, they are just stronger financially and they are ready to make investments in our sports centre and the stadium, as well as with me in the tourism sector." In the meantime, Zamparini continues to call the shots in Palermo and that means firing Ballardini, who he said did not want to stay in charge of the club anyway. Ballardini, however, will remain on the payroll until his contract expires next summer, without working a single more day for the club. "Ballardini's a great coach, but he's not so great off the field," Zamparini said. "You can't send me a text message after two months saying 'I don't agree with you, I'm leaving.' I could sue him for damages. "Coaches are not like normal workers. They earn bucketloads of money and are privileged. Of course they work, but not like any normal employee. The whole system is wrong." Palermo are 15th in the Serie A table with one point from two games.
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