Relegation is embarrassing enough without having your city rivals achieve promotion in the same month, but that’s life for Sampdoria right now. It’s safe to say things are pretty bad for the club that Andrea Radrizzani wants to buy. Genoa’s promotion to Serie A in early May was soundtracked by the song Bellissima by Annalisa, the lyrics of which they’ve rewritten to mock Sampdoria. Ultras partied outside the Samp club shop in town, while a coffin dressed in the famous blucerchiati colours was paraded through Times Square by New York-based Genoa fans.

Not every relegation is as catastrophic as Leeds’ in 2004, but Sampdoria are trying their best to outdo it this year. Their squad has been stripped of talent to feed the club’s growing list of creditors, yet the players are expected to fight for survival while their employers’ financial mishaps are read out in a courtroom and plastered across the back pages. I’m still talking about Sampdoria, if you’re wondering.

This season has worked out for Sampdoria exactly as you’d expect. They were relegated with four games left after losing to Marco Silvestri’s Udinese, but their season could get even worse. They are still at risk of insolvency thanks to the €200m crater in their accounts and €13.5m in unpaid wages that have to be paid before the start of next season or they will be denied a licence to play in Serie B, meaning demotion to the semi-professional Serie D.

Their owner, Massimo Ferrero, stood down as president in December 2021 after being arrested during an investigation into the bankruptcy of four of his businesses, further damaging the cause of Italian football club owners named Massimo.

However, he remains in control of the club and has further endeared himself to the Sampdoria fans by rejecting multiple takeover bids, including one led by the late Gianluca Vialli, a Samp legend, and another from a London-based investment firm. So don’t speak too soon, Andrea, because we know what you’re like.

Buying a club that might be relegated to the fourth tier and are weighed down with debt seems foolish, but who am I to tell someone how to blow their millions? Having graced the same boardroom as Peter Ridsdale, maybe Radrizzani thinks he can ‘save’ Sampdoria? The Elland Road walls have spoken to him and given him the unique wisdom to fix the mistakes of a doomed footballing institution.

I’d like to imagine that he flicked through their Wikipedia squad list and saw Ronaldo Vieira (currently on loan at Torino), Marcelo Bielsa reject Harry Winks and Mickey Cuisance, once of failed Leeds medical fame, and Radrizzani decided this would be his post-Leeds project. That midfield three could be enough to mend the relationship between him and Victor Orta and lure his old mate to Italy for another crack at trying to outsmart the entire football industry.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Samp’s mountain of debt if/when Radrizzani takes over. Will he be as generous as your favourite uncle at a wedding and pay everyone what they’re owed? Or will he go full Ken Bates and plunge the club into administration, leaving creditors to pick the bones? It would be a PR disaster were Sampdoria’s new owners to fail in saving the club from the ignominy of expulsion from professional football, especially when their rivals are having so much fun, so it’s a good thing Radrizzani is so experienced in the PR department.

The fans, led by Gradinata Sud Sampdoria, the club’s ultras, have vociferously held the ownership to account, to put it mildly. Bullets have been sent in the post to Ferrero, a pig’s head was sent to the club’s offices in February and last month’s game against Spezia was temporarily suspended as ultras lobbed flares onto the pitch in protest at ownership failures.

Radrizzani might need a thicker skin than he and his Leeds colleagues have shown in recent years. He has entrusted some new pals for the Sampdoria takeover, according to Football Italia. Jordan Rocca, who appears to own a VIP nightclub in Manchester called ToyBox, and Matteo Manfredi, your run-of-the-mill finance guy, have been mentioned as Radrizzani’s takeover partners.

Sampdoria are a similar club to Leeds; they won a league title in the early 1990s and have always boasted a strong support and ‘brand’. Both briefly flirted with success since their last great triumphs, but flew too close to the sun and ended up in serious financial trouble.

Anyway, good luck, Andrea. The timing is amazing, appearing in Genoa the morning after the club he currently owns limped closer to the cliff edge. Let’s just hope, for his sake, that he doesn’t let any of his family members mess with Sampdoria’s iconic kit design. ⬢