ROME: First it was the captain. Then the coach. And now it’s the president.

One by one, the totems of Italian soccer are stepping aside.

Gianluigi Buffon made the first move when he announced his retirement from the national team after the Azzurri’s failure to qualify for the World Cup.

Two days later, coach Gian Piero Ventura was fired amid widespread criticism.

Then on Monday, federation president Carlo Tavecchio resigned amid eroding support, exactly a week after the playoff loss to Sweden kept Italy out of the World Cup for the first time in six decades.

With the presidencies of Serie A and B also vacant, the nation’s most popular sport is in for a complete leadership overhaul.

An angry Tavecchio told a news conference he had resigned because he had lost political support within the FIGC, not because of the team’s results on the field.

“I didn’t think for an instant. I resigned and I resigned as a political act to the Council, certainly not for sporting reasons,” he said. “I asked the members of the Federal Council to resign as well and nobody did, they left me on my own.”

Often referring to himself in the third person, he said he had been the victim of persecution by the media. “The only thing missing was Tavecchio on the cross,” he said.

He also said that Italy’s elimination had affected him personally as an ordinary fan. “Carlo Tavecchio was very upset, but not as the head of the football federation, but as Carlo Tavecchio.”

He added that it had not been his decision to appoint Ventura, a journeyman coach who had never coached either AC Milan, Inter Milan or Juventus nor won a major title at club level.

“Now, everyone knows that I wasn’t the one who chose Ventura. [But] Tavecchio pays because of Ventura,” he said.

Tavecchio was elected president of the FIGC after a landslide vote in his favour in 2014 that saw 18 of the 20 Serie A clubs back him.

He won the vote despite it coming just weeks after making racist slurs, referring to black players who “ate bananas” before they came to play in Italy.

He has also in the past stirred controversy for anti-semitic and homophobic comments.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2017