Beppe Signori: “The strength to be reborn thanks to my children”

A journey into the underworld and then the ascent. It took ten years for that Beppe Signori could see the light again. Offside – A story of life and sport by Pier Paolo Paganelli, previewed at Biografilm Festival of Bologna and on Sky Documentaries on June 19 at 9.15 pm (Italian cinemas will also arrive from the 20th), tells the sporting epic of a footballer three times top scorer in Serie A, the experience with the national team at the 1994 World Cup, the meeting with Zeman which transformed him from an anonymous playmaker to a true striker (first in Foggia and then in Lazio) and the legal affair, which devastated the life of a man and canceled the champion.

In 2004 Beppe Signori ends his experience in the Italian league with Bologna scoring a total of 188 goals. In 2010 comes the coaching license. Gentlemen was ready to start a new career and instead the June 1, 2011 is arrested for football betting along with 15 other people. His life plummets. The newspapers hit him on the front page like the leader of a gang of thugs. His family is in shock. After 10 years, the former footballer, thanks to his lawyer Patrizia Brandi, is cleared of any accusation and the FIGC rehabilitates him.

This film is a form of compensation for those 10 years that “no one will ever give me back,” says Signori, “I wanted to take some kind of revenge and cry out to the world my innocence ». The bomber in fact had renounced both the plea bargain and the prescription.

The strength to go on «I found it thanks to my children, my wife and those friends that I knew they would never abandon me “, he says,” I had many difficulties and also a physical problem (a pulmonary embolism ed). I found courage inside myself, a bit like when I was on the pitch: I didn’t want to lose even the friendlies ».

Now Gentlemen can look people straight in the eye. «I don’t have to be ashamed of anything, of course I made some errors in evaluation, but now I’m happy and I would like to become a coach, fulfilling the dream that was shattered in June 2011. I miss the scent of weed“. In the meantime, you have a project dedicated to children in mind. “An academy aimed at children that will start from Miami in September and will cross Italy”, says Signori, “The youth sectors are very important, the national team is paying the consequences of a vacuum in this area, and we know well that the teams low-ranking players have 6-8 foreign players. We have to start from here for the good of Italian football ».

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