October 5 – Gaddafi’s Serie A Adventure

EVERY kid wants to be a professional footballer, but some simply lack the talent, motivation, or perhaps just the opportunity to achieve their dream.

When your father is the dictator of his own country however, you might have a better chance than most of turning pro, even if your skills are not quite of bill-paying standard.

Colonel Gaddafi, or ‘Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’ to use the snappy title he is known officially in his country, managed to fix it for his son Al Saadi Gaddafi to be a footballer and he played for Libyan sides Al Ahly Tripoli and Al Ittihad.

But Al Saadi had loftier ambitions than that, and yearned to play in Serie A. Again, beyond the reach of most Libyan players, but not when your dad is the biggest cheese in an oil rich state.

In 2003 Gaddafi signed for Italian club Perugia at a ceremony at a castle north of Rome owned by the chairman, Luciano Gaucci. Despite a distinct fishy feel to the whole deal, the club denied the signing was a stunt or a favour for Gaddafi’s engineered by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The fact that Italy gets a quarter of its oil from Libya was totally coincidental apparently, and any notion that Gaddafi was not up to Serie A standard would soon be dispelled when he took to the pitch.

Except that he didn’t. There were myriad problems which delayed his first appearance for the club. First it was a registration problem, and then it was a ban imposed because of his membership of the board of Juventus (in which the Libyan government has a 7.5% stake). Finally, it was a back injury.

Then , finally, on this day in 2003 he made it as far as the subs bench for a league match. He didn’t get on to the field of play, but he did get selected for a random urine drugs test. Which he failed.

He tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone without having made a single appearance for the club. The chairman Luciano Gaucci claimed it was all a big misunderstanding and that he had no doubt tested positive because of drugs he took in Germany for his back problems.

Unfortunately he forgot to get his story straight with the club spokesman Paolo Giovagnoni who said: “This is the first I’ve heard of him going to Germany.”

He did eventually make one appearance when he played the final ten token minutes of a meaningless end of season match, before signing for Udinese, where again, he was what could politely be termed a ‘squad player’, or more of a squad dweller really since he never actually played for the team there either.

We will be back tomorrow, but until then, keep yourself going by checking out our offering from this day last year.