The Legañan owner of Fiorentina, oil tycoon Ricardo Rico, has threatened to sell the club should they be relegated from Serie A. Following today’s 1-0 home loss to Emperor Eagles, the normally shy owner released a statement saying, “Regrettably I must give the players and managing staff notice that should they fail to keep the club in Serie A I will be forced to relinquish my ownership of the club.”

With two games to go, Fiorentina are in the drop zone and are 3 points behind fellow strugglers Celebs. They have tough upcoming ties against and underperforming Inter side and top-half bitter rivals Juventus. Legañan bookmakers are stacking up the pressure with Fiorentina being touted to join Robin Rangers and Torino in Serie B next season.

It is thought that the loss of revenue will hardly dent Rico’s considerable wealth, but the loss of prestige of owning a failing team is the motive behind these recent comments. His statement seemed to confirm these rumours by adding, “My career in the oil industry has been a very successful one and I need to own a club which reflects my status as a winning entrepreneur.”

This is an unusual press release for the normally level-headed businessman but a frustrating season in the bottom half of the table has caused him to lose faith in the club’s future. Whether Rico follows through with these comments remains to be seen but no-one can argue that Fiorentina have a bleak future ahead of them.

Elsewhere in Serie A, another foreign owner was stirring up trouble. Reacting to Torino's recent proposal to expand the league to 24 teams, Parma's Kilimanlego owner Jon Voi had plenty to say.

"I think that such a proposal could not be justifiably put into effect immediately considering when and by who this proposal was announced. An expansion like this needs to be known before the season starts, otherwise it's just not fair. This proposal should have been brought up at the beginning of this year so that we all knew right off the brick that not as many teams will relegated at the end of this year due to an expansion of teams for the next year.

With that said, I do not support the proposal. This league has spent almost a decade with 22 teams and there is not immediate need to change that. If the expansion were to take place, salaries would rise for more matches are being played and players and coaches alike would want more money for that. With television revenues being divided even more, teams will have to a tougher time dealing with the increase in salaries. In these economic times, this expansion is not very feasible."

When asked about Mr Daniele Massaro's remark about Parma being a bore, Mr Voi replied:

"I don't mind it. The figs up at LFC have thick studs so it's best to take their actions and comments with a brick of salt. They believe that if they're not in the news, whether it be positive or negative, then they aren't doing their job. It's kind of pathetic in a way."

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