The Italian ambassador in Spain, Buccino Grimaldi, sent a letter on Monday to the president of Casademont Zaragoza, Reynaldo Benito, to regret that the Maño club has signed a collaboration agreement with the restaurant chain The Mafia sits at the table. The ambassador says he feels “disturbed” and that is why he expresses his “discomfort” for the sponsorship chosen by the basketball club. It is the first time, they acknowledge in the Italian embassy, that this type of letter is sent and more in the sports field.
Casademont Zaragoza and the restaurant chain announced in February of this year that they had reached a sponsorship agreement. In the statement it was highlighted that The Mafia sits at the table is “an Italian-Mediterranean restaurant brand” and a group “turned into a benchmark and faithful importer of Italian gastronomy in Spain”. To understand the impact that this sponsorship has had in Italy -several media echoed the letter yesterday- this simile is worth it: it is as if a restaurant chain called “ETA sits at the table” and a sports club opened in Italy Italian sign a collaboration and sponsorship agreement with her.
Hence the formal protest of the Italian ambassador, who took office on June 1. The letter, which was sent yesterday, mentions a ruling issued by the General Court of the European Union that reflects, according to the ambassador, the feelings of many Italians who live and work in Spain.
Grimaldi points out that the Mafia is a “criminal phenomenon” and that “numerous efforts and considerable resources” are devoted to fighting it, not only from the Italian Government but also from the European Union, since “organized crime is a serious threat to the security, the legal economy and coexistence”. He understands, therefore, that associating the Mafia with concepts of cordiality and relaxation, “based on the fact that the Mafia would sit at the table” to share a meal, “contributes to the trivialization of illegal activities and misdeeds committed by said organization”.
The ambassador recalled that both the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) and the Court of the European Union have addressed the issue of registration of the Mafia sits at the table and both organizations “have highlighted how this brand is contrary to public order and offensive.”
According to the Italian embassy, no response has yet been received from Casademont Zaragoza. The club, for its part, says that it has not received it and adds that it is not going to make “any type of statement” except, yes, to emphasize that the Mafia sits at the table He is “a collaborator as he also collaborates with other clubs” and remember that “there are video games and streets in Italy that are called Mafia.”
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