All the secrets of Fiorentina's Viola Park How the Tuscan team built one of the most futuristic training center in Europe
It was at the start of the new millennium, in March 2001 to be precise, that Fiorentina, under the leadership of Vittorio Cecchi Gori, first attempted to bid farewell to the "campini" - at least in a concrete and decisive way. This is what the not exactly avant-garde rooms near the Stadio Comunale, where the Viola have been training for a long time, were and are called in the city. Temporary, but only in theory: in fact, the club had already settled there decades earlier and despite an attempt in 2001 - which failed when the club went bankrupt - it remained there until the Viola Park was inaugurated last year.
The club had already tried to move to its own facility in the 1970s and 1980s without much success. Sesto Fiorentino and then Pontassieve were first considered, but in both cases the project was put on ice without anything coming of it. The Cecchi Gori project, on the other hand, was more concrete: The acquisition of the land in Bagno a Ripoli, a dozen kilometres outside Florence, seemed to be the long-awaited turning point, the beginning of a new era; but unfortunately, the looming collapse of the company dragged everything into bankruptcy proceedings and put the search for a space for a sports centre on hold.
Such an area and sports centre not only increase the value of the club and optimise the running of its activities, but are also a clear plus for the attractiveness and status of the club. A place where young people can get to know the true essence of "Fiorentina" and get closer to the team, its history and its future projects. After all, Viola Park was planned and built precisely for this reason: to unite the past, present and future of one of the most historic teams in Italian football. By opening the doors of a centre that finally makes belonging to Fiorentina something special, not only in the abstract sense, but also in the everyday, for the fans and all members of the club.
