Saturday 20 June 2015 16:31, UK
Fiorentina are committed to seeing their joint venture with FC Pune City flourish, according to the Indian Super League’s side president.
Fiorentina began working with Pune – who recently appointed former Manchester City assistant David Platt as manager - prior to last year’s inaugural edition of the ISL, which was won by Atletico Kolkata.
Both Pune and Fiorentina retained an option to go their separate ways after the 2014 league but Pune president Gaurav Modwel says the Serie A club's commitment to Indian football remains undiminished.
“Fiorentina own an equity stake in the club and are a shareholder of FC Pune City,” Modwel told Sky Sports. “They are our proper partners and have proper board representation.
“We had an understanding and an agreement for the first year of the ISL but both parties had an option up until April to decide whether to continue the partnership or not.
“The tournament was over last December and in the first week of January both of us decided we wanted to go ahead because we had a great experience of working together.
“CEO Sandro Mencucci and Leonardo Limatola (Fiorentina’s head of planning and development) are very passionate about what we are doing and are absolutely on board with us.
“They have even converted one of their rooms at Fiorentina into a Pune office. We work and will continue to work very, very closely together.”
Platt’s appointment is something of a coup for Pune and Modwel revealed the ex-Arsenal, Juventus and Sampdoria midfielder previously turned down the opportunity to link-up again with Roberto Mancini at Inter Milan.
“David remains very close to and has a lot of respect for Roberto, and of course they played together at Sampdoria,” Modwel said.
“They worked together for three years at Manchester City but he didn’t take up an offer to join Roberto at Inter for personal reasons.
“I don’t think he was keen on a long-term stint which is why a six month assignment here works well for him. Inter might have meant 10 or 11 months away from his family every year which was not desirable.”
