A club that has survived through thick and thin (like the Reds) and made it to their promised land (Serie A) They did so in a tough play-off winning with 10 men! Fairytail stuff when you read their relatively recent history. Whilst Italian football's reputation has been rock bottom with corruption, greed etc. being rife it is still good to know that there are small clubs that can show it is not just about money. Now faced with huge but not insurmountable problems with a stadium that is less than half the minimum capacity to meet Serie A rules and little scope for major expansion Venezia has one of the oldest stadiums in Italy, surrounded on 3 sides by water, on the edge of the largest of the Venice islands (fans can only access it by boat) Plans drawn up 3 years ago for a new all purpose futuristic stadium 12 km from the centre of Venice are still ongoing (we all know about Italian bureaucracy) but work is frantically being carried out to increase capacity at the old stadium to reach the 16000 minimum requirement (currently 7400). Otherwise they may have to play 'Home' matches at Ferrara 110km away (hardly a 'home' game) They have a 3 year respite form teh League to use the current stadium. Be interesting to see if they can maintain their league status against the 'big teams' A.C. Milan, Juventus, Lazio etc .or end up relegated in their first season . https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57969205
I'd love to go there. We went past the ground last time we were there and still have a trip paid for and on hold til next year. Maybe I'll check their fixtures out in the spring.
Fantastic story, the fans deserve to see their team play at their own stadium, so hopefully a solution can be reached. Reminds me of the book by Joe McGinniss, 'The miracle of Castel de Sangro'. A great read I'd recommend.
Ah! Article I read was wrong then . Been to Venice on more than one occasion, Did not even know there was a stadium there
Yeah it says by boat or walk. Fair trek if you're coming from the western side of Venice but doable in an hour.
