Re: CISSE CHALLANGES NAPOLI BOSS ON HIS THREAT TO NOT BUY AFRICAN PLAYERS
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2022 9:29 pm
Italian club owners can be bombastic. The Korean player that scored the goal that knocked Italy out of WC 2002 was playing for an Italian club. After that match his Italian boss sacked him from the club and warned him not to return to Italy ever again.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... 02.sport11
It made him South Korea's hero but Ahn Jung-hwan's golden goal also appears to have earned him the sack from Perugia as part of Italy's backlash against its shock exit from the World Cup.
That he scored just one goal for the Serie A club last season rendered his historic strike in Tuesday's match all the more treacherous, according to his employers.
"That gentleman will never set foot in Perugia again. He was a phenomenon only when he played against Italy," Perugia's president Luciano Gaucci, told the sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport.
"I am a nationalist and I regard such behaviour not only as an affront to Italian pride but also an offence to a country which two years ago opened its doors to him. I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian football."
Since moving from Busan to Perugia in the summer of 2000, Italy had considered Ahn an under-achieving lightweight but his 117th-minute strike engraved his name in the chronicles of Italian catastrophes.
It clinched a 2-1 win for the co-hosts and followed a string of dubious decisions which convinced many Italians the game was rigged. Parliament is due to debate the alleged conspiracy today after media-led fury proclaiming "the death of football".
A Perugia spokesman said the club was close to ditching Ahn even before the World Cup. A decision about his contract had been due by the end of this month. Apparently unaware of Perugia's reaction - and that he was rubbing it in - the 26-year-old said: "Although we won on my goal, I think I should thank Italy. I didn't play much, [but] I've learned a lot and had tough timesin Italy. That has helped me play good matches in this World Cup."
If Ahn is banned from Perugia the whole of Italy is off-limits to Byron Moreno, the Ecuadorian referee whose face was splashed across front pages which accused him of being Fifa's triggerman in a conspiracy to oust Italy.
"The only man with facial cellulite", "at least 15kg over weight", "bug-eyed", "immature", he was all those things and worse, said commentators, who said the Azzurri had been denied a legitimate goal and that Francesco Totti had been unfairly sent off.
"We committed so many errors that we deserved to be shot in the chest. Instead we were shot in the back. This isn't sport. One can accept sporting defeats, with anger and grief, but one cannot accept betrayal," said Corriere dello Sport, beneath a one-word banner headline: "Thieves".
Politicians echoed the players who said Italy had paid the price for lacking representation at Fifa's top echelons. Television and radio chat shows - including Vatican Radio - seethed with claims that Italy's five disallowed "goals" in the finals confirmed a conspiracy, with historians recalling outrages from other tournaments.
"Italy has been thrown out of a dirty World Cup where referees and linesmen are used as hitmen," said Corriere della Sera. "No other team in the entire history of the World Cup has suffered so many injustices."
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... 02.sport11
It made him South Korea's hero but Ahn Jung-hwan's golden goal also appears to have earned him the sack from Perugia as part of Italy's backlash against its shock exit from the World Cup.
That he scored just one goal for the Serie A club last season rendered his historic strike in Tuesday's match all the more treacherous, according to his employers.
"That gentleman will never set foot in Perugia again. He was a phenomenon only when he played against Italy," Perugia's president Luciano Gaucci, told the sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport.
"I am a nationalist and I regard such behaviour not only as an affront to Italian pride but also an offence to a country which two years ago opened its doors to him. I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian football."
Since moving from Busan to Perugia in the summer of 2000, Italy had considered Ahn an under-achieving lightweight but his 117th-minute strike engraved his name in the chronicles of Italian catastrophes.
It clinched a 2-1 win for the co-hosts and followed a string of dubious decisions which convinced many Italians the game was rigged. Parliament is due to debate the alleged conspiracy today after media-led fury proclaiming "the death of football".
A Perugia spokesman said the club was close to ditching Ahn even before the World Cup. A decision about his contract had been due by the end of this month. Apparently unaware of Perugia's reaction - and that he was rubbing it in - the 26-year-old said: "Although we won on my goal, I think I should thank Italy. I didn't play much, [but] I've learned a lot and had tough timesin Italy. That has helped me play good matches in this World Cup."
If Ahn is banned from Perugia the whole of Italy is off-limits to Byron Moreno, the Ecuadorian referee whose face was splashed across front pages which accused him of being Fifa's triggerman in a conspiracy to oust Italy.
"The only man with facial cellulite", "at least 15kg over weight", "bug-eyed", "immature", he was all those things and worse, said commentators, who said the Azzurri had been denied a legitimate goal and that Francesco Totti had been unfairly sent off.
"We committed so many errors that we deserved to be shot in the chest. Instead we were shot in the back. This isn't sport. One can accept sporting defeats, with anger and grief, but one cannot accept betrayal," said Corriere dello Sport, beneath a one-word banner headline: "Thieves".
Politicians echoed the players who said Italy had paid the price for lacking representation at Fifa's top echelons. Television and radio chat shows - including Vatican Radio - seethed with claims that Italy's five disallowed "goals" in the finals confirmed a conspiracy, with historians recalling outrages from other tournaments.
"Italy has been thrown out of a dirty World Cup where referees and linesmen are used as hitmen," said Corriere della Sera. "No other team in the entire history of the World Cup has suffered so many injustices."
