Alessandro del Piero will be 40 next year, he’s had hamstring injuries this year and were pretty sure we saw him buying a Stannah stairlift the other day.
But Sydney FC couldn’t give a monkey’s about things like results, league position and eligibility for bus passes, because Del Piero means dollars – so they’ve signed him up for another season content with the knowledge that even though the rest of the side is shit, at least del Piero will increase the gate receipts.
“Clearly, all the metrics are there. Crowd numbers, viewing numbers, etc, and the club has received spike in all of those areas,” tooted chairman Scott
Barlow, wearing his dollar-sign-shaped contact lenses just to ram home the point.
“But even more importantly, I think it’s the influence that Alessandro has around the club. The opportunity it provides to some of our younger players to train and play alongside Alessandro every day, we really value that side of it.”
You’re fooling no one Scott. Still, it seems BBM is a lone cynical voice in all this with the fans, club and player himself all delighted that the Italian star has agreed to get paid a small fortune to play for another season. In fact, del Piero is so thrilled with the beach lifestyle and A-League gravy train that he’s already talking to his silver-haired mates from the Mecca Bingo club in Turin about joining him out here.
“For sure, in Italy, after I come here there’s a lot of interest – more than before. Some friends of mine call me, maybe also Tony [Pignata, chief executive], to look [around] and to understand,” he said.
Which basically means we can expect to see a lot of old, balding Italians leering at the backpackers down Bondi next season. On the plus side, it’ll be nice for BBM to have some company down there.
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