The Innovative Mr Alberico and his Sports Centre

February 25, 2008 · Filed Under Good Italian Things · Comment 

Here is another story of a ‘Good Italian Thing’ that I discovered while starting a new English course last week which is tied to a part-time master in Sports Business Management. As you might expect, many of the participants are ex-sportsmen and women, and they are a fascinating bunch of people too.

A Chat With a Student

Well, after a lesson, I had a chat with one of the participants, one Donato Alberico, who it turned out is the director of a sports complex down in the deep south, and also happens to be an ex-national Italian tennis champion to boot. Mr Alberico told me a little about the sports centre he runs.

Running Costs

This centre is the Centro Sportivo Meridionale in San Pietro al Tanagro, and can be found some 80 kilometres to the south of Salerno (map) near Naples. The Centro Sportivo Meridionale has only quite recently, I understand, been brought back into service, in fact, the sports centre had been badly damaged by an earthquake.

However, although the centre is up and running, the problem appears to be keeping the 150,000 square metre complex going due to the high running costs it incurs. The covered swimming pool for example, which was recently refurbished, costs a small fortune to heat. And although the enterprising management have managed to obtain some sponsorship and finance, there never seems to be quite enough to keep the place running, and, more importantly, expanding.

Unfortunately, and in part due to indirect funding difficulties, the facilities that this complex offers are not yet fully exploited, despite demand for them being high. Part of the problem appears to be the cash strapped local schools, which although they would be more than happy to use all the centre has on offer, cannot send groups of pupils to swim and play tennis etc simply because the local authorities cannot afford to make the overtime payments to the teaching staff who are required to supervise the excursions to the sports centre. If the sports centre could possibly pay the teachers directly, then that might encourage the schools to use the centre more.

An Innovative Solution

Notwithstanding these odd indirect funding problems, the non-profit organisation, Meta SPA (the site is in Italian), which manages the complex, has been actively attempting to develop other non-sports related income streams, and, the student of mine is doing the Sports Business Management Master in order to understand better how to run and raise funds for the centre. But prior to doing the master, Mr Alberico and his team were not simply swinging their heels. Oh no.

The Centro Sportivo Meridionale also functions as a form of management training school and has been working with a similar organisation from business school infested Milan to develop the Centro Sportivo into a sort of business school of the south.

The Centro currently runs around 14 post graduation master type courses which have a distinctly practical orientation, and this should help stimulate business in that area of southern Italy, and, may prevent, in some small way, the South-North brain-drain that is taking place. At present new graduates, who wish to undertake a little practical training in order to prepare themselves for the world of work, usually end up in Milan or Rome. And the main reason for this is the lack of business schools down in the areas of southern Italy they come from.

Enhancing Prospects for South Italy

Mr Alberico and his staff are doing something that is potentially extremely worthwhile for the under-resourced and undervalued south of Italy. However, what the centre needs for both its sports and training activities is more exposure, and, with a little luck some financial assistance. Hence my reason for writing. It’s only a small contribution, I know, but any contribution is better than none at all.

Support this Cause!

So, if by any chance, you my kind reader, happen to be an Italian or of Italian origin and are resident abroad. Maybe you have been treated well by life, and maybe you would like to do something to help out the ‘old’ country. Then, I cannot think of a more worthwhile cause.

Do not hesitate to drop me a line, and I’ll see about putting you in touch with the innovative Mr Alberico, who, by the way, has no idea that I am writing this, and I hope that he won’t object. Don’t worry, I’ll tell him the next time I see him.

Not that I think you will, but please don’t offer to send me donations and the like.

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Tackling lands of confusion

December 17, 2007 · Filed Under Work · 5 Comments 

Whilst trying to stand this sausage thing on its feet, I’ve discovered that it is not all that easy to find the information you need. In Italy, getting the right, well almost, information often means wasting half a day or so in some anonymous public office somewhere, clutching the inevitable numbered ticket. And often these offices are only open for half a day.

On the other hand, get it wrong, and if the authorities do catch up with you, they will stamp on you hard, and you pay for your ignorance in the form of large fines. Explaining that you could not find out where to go to obtain the information you needed, is, of course, no defence.

Still, maybe I’m moaning about nothing. I mean, there are lots of foreigners who set up enterprises around Italy, and I cannot believe all of them are totally without the requisite permissions. Then again, with the right finance, you can hire a decent adviser and get him or her to dig around for you. On the condition that you know what information he or she should obtain for you, or feel that you can trust them enough to ‘get the job’ done.

Hiring someone to prepare the ground for you is an option, but, there are other options. Spending some time on the web can help, but you do need to know the terms you should be searching for, as I’ve been discovering. Once you have the right terms, you can target your search much more effectively. Knowing some Italian does not harm either, as you might imagine.

While Italy is renown for it’s Byzantine, or should that be ‘Machiavellian’, bureaucracy and complex legislation, it is by no means the only country in Europe where finding what you need to know is not easy. Apparently France is the equal of Italy, in terms of trying to set up a business.

Still, if and when you do manage to overcome all the little (!) obstacles, you should feel some sense of satisfaction, although once you are out in the ‘business battlefield’, so to speak, that sense may be rather short lived. In Italy, if you do start making some money, you may well find that the dear old tax man will whittle it all away rather quickly. This is in part why Italian businesses use just about any and every loophole they can find to keep themselves in profit, or it could be argued that it is as a result of Italian businesses exploiting every trick they can, that the dear old Italian tax man takes so much away. Catch 22?

Me, and my partner ‘in crime’, Gaetano, shall keep plugging away, in an attempt to raise our ‘child’ into ‘adulthood’. And as every parent will know, this is by no means an easy thing to do. And juggling other things around at the same time is not going to be easy, either. ‘Why do it, then?’, you may ask. Well, there are lots of reasons. Here are a few: creating something from nothing, being in control, meeting challenges, and, let’s be honest, cash. ‘Can we do it?’. Yes (I am arrogant), and we are sure as hell going to give it a go.

The ball will roll on, but, if it does not end up in the goal, we’ll have to be brave and call it a day. This is going to be the difficult part.

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Sub-prime crisis Italian style? Part 2

November 1, 2007 · Filed Under Italian news · Comment 

A short time ago I wrote about an interesting conversation I had with a union rep while I was down at the 442 pub. This guy told me about the number of people who were struggling to meet mortgage payments.

Well, guess what? Mario Draghi, the current head of the Bank of Italy, has made a couple of interesting statements recently. First, he stated that Italian salary levels are low compared to other countries in the European Union - 25% lower than French salaries and 20% lower than salaries in the UK. Then, Mr Draghi made an even more interesting observation. He commented at a recent congress that Italians are going to find it difficult to meet mortgage payments.

Sub-prime crisis Italian style anybody? It sounds as though there is a possibility, despite Italian lenders being legally restricted to ensure that repayments do not exceed a third of monthly income.

However, even though Mr Draghi is quite rightly ringing alarm bells, he is missing something. That something is that great efforts are being made to ensure that Italians fall further and further into debt, much in the same way as Americans and Britons have done.

The question is why is this the case. The answer is quite simple. There is an enormous amount of money to be made from servicing debt. If you have no debt, you do not owe anyone interest, and lenders cannot maximize interest related income. This market requires some stimulation - more people need to be put in a situation where they need some form of finance, be it short or long term. By keeping salary levels low, the market for finance automatically grows as the cost of living rises. And prices in Italy are moving up, much to the delight of lenders, I’m sure, and more and more Italians are being forced into seeking finance. As I have observed before, lending institutions are springing up almost daily in Italy, because they know that they stand to make millions out of finance related interest payments.

Italians are wise and effective savers, not to mention their being rather adept keeping their tax liability at a minimum, but I wonder what the situation will be in two generations time. Will Italy see house repossession levels on the same scale as the US and UK? Time will tell.

Of course, I am but a mere sprat in the big sea of things, but Mario Draghi is a whale, and while I may be wrong, I doubt he is.

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