Libyan Football Championship Finals in Italy Become a Farce

Libyan Football Championship Finals in Italy Become a Farce

On May 7 in Tripoli, during a new visit of Georgia Meloni in the Libyan capital, the Prime Minister was also accompanied by Andrea Abodi. current Minister of Sports. And the question arises spontaneously: what did the head of the sports ministry do in Libya? The answer is very simple: the Mattei Plan, the infamous program that should bring Rome back to the forefront in Africa, does not only concern gas, oil and large dams, but also exchanges in the sports field.

And so, in the presence of the Libyan Prime Minister Ddeibahon that May 7th a document was signed that provided, among other things, the organization in Italy of the final stages of the Libyan Serie A football. A tournament that, just like the North African country, cannot find peace. Playing in Libya is not exactly simple, and the current division between east and west further complicates the plans. Therefore, for years the leaders of the local football federation have been forced to go abroad at the end of the season in search of available stadiums to let their teams play.

Libyan Serie A, everything was ready for the tournament in Tuscany

There is an important element to consider: for Libyans, sport is not a detail in their daily lives. On the contrary, it is perhaps a way to distract themselves from a life that has become terribly hard over the past several decades. When the main basketball teams face each other in Tripoli, for example, the local sports hall lights up and the matches see the presence of political leaders in the stands. But, perhaps due to the colonial legacy, football is the most popular sport.

So much so that Gaddafi himself, despite not particularly liking to see crowds gathered in a stadium or a square, placed a lot of emphasis on football in terms of soft power. His son Saadi was a shareholder of Juventus and Triestina and as a player he also played in Serie A, without leaving much of an impact, to tell the truth. In any case, for Italy being able to open the gates of the stadiums to Libyan teams represents an opportunity to confirm and relaunch its influence in the North African country.

It is probably with this in mind that Meloni and Abodi have signed the agreements to bring six Libyan teams, three from Tripolitania and three from Cyrenaica, to our peninsula. And everything, until a few days ago, seemed to be going smoothly. Three stadiums have been identified: Pisa, Empoli and the Viola Park facility where Fiorentina trains.

Libyans didn’t like the hotels

In the official calendar, the challenges were supposed to start on June 27. Then, suddenly, the first hitch: the tournament was postponed to July 1. Technical and logistical problems at the base, but everything was still ready for the first kick-off, albeit postponed.

Between Saturday and Sunday the new and sudden U-turns: as underlined by Corriere Fiorentino, the Tuscan stadiums made available for the Libyan teams are destined to remain with the gates closed and the stands empty. The reason? According to the journalist Morad Dakhil, of the Libyan broadcaster Wasat TV, the footballers didn’t like the hotels.

Yet these were structures located between Pisa, Montecatini Terme and Campi Bisenzio, places renowned for their hotel complexes. Italy on the one hand and the Libyan federation on the other, had found excellent solutions to host everyone: “But the problem – a diplomatic source told our microphones – was not so much in the quality of the hotels, but in the fact that the teams were divided and could not withdraw”.

Looking for new fields

What was supposed to be a sporting catwalk also aimed at reclaiming the deep political and cultural bond between the two shores of the Mediterranean, is in danger of turning into a real farce. At the very time when the Libyan teams were supposed to battle it out on the pitch, the leaders of the Libyan football federation moved from Tuscany to Lazio in search of new facilities.

In the capital there would also be stadiums where it would be possible to play: of course, it seems impossible to grant the Olimpico and the Flaminio has been out of use for years, but there are several facilities in the city approved for intermediate categories and used during the season by many local teams. Furthermore, according to Corriere Fiorentino, other facilities around Lazio have been made available to the Libyan football federation, including the one in Rieti.

Race against time to save the competition

But in the meantime another obstacle has arisen: Libyan footballers do not want to play on synthetic grass pitches and many of those seen in Lazio do not have the classic natural grass surface: “I am not a technician – declared the diplomatic source we contacted – so I don’t know if the Libyan teams’ players are really not used to synthetic pitches. What is certain is that, with a little more common sense on everyone’s part, some paradoxical situations could have been avoided”.

Now the categorical imperative is to save the tournament. An imperative that applies to the Libyans, after all also in Tripoli and Benghazi behind football there are sporting and extra-sporting interests, including the financing offered to some teams by the main political actors. But it also applies to Italy: bringing the Libyan championship to our country represents an important step from a political perspective. Not only with regard to relations with Tripoli but, more generally, with reference to the government’s ambitions on the African continent. A failure, even if not directly attributable to Rome, would cause considerable damage to its image.