(ATR) The TOROC executive board has fired the committee's general manager and his deputy. Paolo Rota and Marcello Pochettino were dismissed after becoming embroiled in a struggle over who was responsible for several areas of the committee's activity.
Pochettino had been suspended the week before because of negligence overseeing the organization's finances and using a company car privately.
Luciano Barra, who will replace Pochettino, tells Around the Rings that the board voted unanimously to fire the two and that TOROC president Valentino Castellani, Rota's friend and ally, accepted the decision.
Barra, a well-known figure in European sports, had been brought to TOROC in late 2004 as special assistant to government Olympic supervisor Mario Pescante.
Cesare Vaciago, who is Turin mayor Sergio Chiamparino's city manager, will take Rota's place. A spokesman for the mayor says that Vaciago will keep his post at the city.
"Chiamparino came up with Vaciago's name as a solution to the crisis," the spokesman said. Piemonte regional president Enzo Ghigo and Turin province president Antonio Saitta agreed and Pescante adopted the proposal, the spokesman said.
"The situation had become unbearable," Barra says, "and (TOROC management) was not working as a team." The committee's leaders had reached the point where "they spoke through letters," says Barra.
A dozen TOROC managers had recently penned a letter to their superiors supporting Pochettino and asking for "profound change" within the organization.
Vaciago will be in charge of the organizational side, overseeing TOROC itself, while Barra will act as chief of operations.
"The crisis has been solved," according to Barra, who says that Turin's financial woes are over and that, with most venues already tested and ready for the 2006 Games, his new job will be relatively easy.
Pochettino, however, does not intend to go quietly, and has announced he will sue TOROC for wrongful termination.
Meanwhile the National Alliance, a party in prime minister Berlusconi's ruling coalition, has staged a street protest in Turin on March 7 asking for Castellani's resignation. The party said Castellani was responsible for "bad management."
More in the March 11 edition of Around the Rings -- "when accuracy matters". Also for subscribers only - on the scene in Paris with the IOC Evaluation Commission.
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
