Diana Bianchedi resigns from her role as head of delegation of the National team: Abodi had attacked her

Diana Bianchedi has resigned from her role as head of delegation of the Italian national football team. The former Olympic fencing champion and deputy vice president of Coni had been appointed on 9 August by the new Figc number one, Giovanni Malagò. The appointment itself had sparked discontent within the Italian Olympic Committee over the possible incompatibility between the two positions. Bianchedi's resignation comes amid the registration affair that could cost Malagò the presidency of the Football Federation. The move will allow the former fencer to vote in the Board on the proposal for a commissionership, likely next week: as Figc head of delegation, in fact, she would not have been able to. Bianchedi had only made her debut in the federation role a week ago, on 23 September. The resignation came in a letter: "Following the statements made by the Minister for Sport and Youth Andrea Abodi, and the controversies that have arisen in the press this afternoon, I am submitting my resignation as Head of Delegation of the National Team. A decision made out of the great respect I have for Coni," the former fencing champion explained, "for its Board, for the Figc and for the sports institutions, as my career as an athlete and as an executive demonstrates. I have always acted with fairness and seriousness, respecting the rules and the people, for the good of sport: values that today are unjustly being called into question. Furthermore, I choose to step back for the sake of what the azzurri shirt represents, first and foremost in order to protect the team from pointless controversy. A team I found to be united, motivated, with great professionals, starting with the head coach, through to the players and the entire staff. I thank them for how they welcomed me and for the emotions they made me experience in just a few days. Let us remember," Bianchedi concludes, "that sport is, and must be, primarily this. Let's cheer for these boys, they deserve it." Abodi's attack "The deputy vice president and the vice president have the right and the duty to express an opinion, but if it is always contrary they should make a choice, because that role was entrusted to them within the framework of a relationship of trust," the Minister for Sport Andrea Abodi had said in the morning about the friction within the Coni Board: at the meeting on Tuesday 29 September, in fact, the vice presidents Marco Di Paola and Diana Bianchedi had expressed a negative opinion on the proposal for a commissionership of the Weightlifting Federation put forward by the Coni number one, Luciano Buonfiglio, only to then fall in line in favour of it during the vote. "It is thought-provoking that two such representative figures, to whom a prominent role has been entrusted in a relationship of trust," Abodi adds on the sidelines of the fifth edition of 'Sky Up The Edit', the broadcaster's project dedicated to schools, "are unable to bear witness to that trust, to bear witness to it consistently. They will make their choices internally, but normally relationships like this do not last very long in the role and in the function."