Aldo Spinelli (January 4, 1940, Palmi, Italy) is an Italian entrepreneur and sports executive. Aldo Spinelli was born in 1940 in Palmi,

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

, Italy.

Biography

His father Roberto died on February 19, 1958, at the age of 42, in the shipwreck of the ship Bonitas owned by Ravano off the coast of Virginia. Thanks to the American insurance compensation for his father's death and many promissory notes, Aldo acquired the Almea transport company in 1963 at the age of 23, which already had significant financial problems. He renamed it Rebora, changed the color of the trucks from blue to yellow, and gradually shifted the company's focus to logistics and container transport by adapting the company's trailers for this type of transport. On December 27, 1990, he was named Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President

Francesco Cossiga Francesco Maurizio Cossiga (; , ; 1928 – 2010)
. was an Italian politician who served as President of ...

, on the proposal of the Prime Minister's Office.

Career

From 1997 to 2002, he also entered politics as a municipal councilor in Genoa for the PRI-

Socialists Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and socia ...

list under the first administration of Mayor Giuseppe Pericu.

Genoa

On May 7, 1985, Spinelli took over the

Genoa CFC Genoa Cricket and Football Club () is an Italian professional Association football, football club based in Genoa, Liguria. The team competes in the Serie A, the top division of the Italian football league system. Established in 1893, Genoa is ...

Serie B The Serie B (), officially known as Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had b ...

. During his 13 seasons leading the club (6 years in

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

), he achieved several successes in the club's post-war history, including reaching the semi-finals of the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

, winning among other matches, the home and away games against

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

(the first Italian team to win at

Anfield Anfield is a Association football, football stadium in the area of Anfield (suburb), Anfield, Liverpool, England, which has been the home of Liverpool F.C. since its formation in 1892. The stadium has a seating capacity of 61,276, making it the ...

), and the

Anglo-Italian Cup The Anglo-Italian Cup (, also known as the Anglo-Italian Inter-League Clubs Competition and from 1976 to 1986 as the Alitalia Challenge Cup, Talbot Challenge Cup or Gigi Peronace Memorial) was a European football competition. The competition was ...

. He left the presidency of the Genoa club on October 11, 1997.

Livorno

On March 1, 1999, he became president of US Livorno 1915. He applied his experience from managing Genoa to lead Livorno from

Serie C1 Serie C1 was the third highest football league in Italy. It consisted of 36 teams, divided geographically into two divisions. History Before the 1978–79 season, there were only three professional football leagues in Italy, the third being Se ...

to Serie A in 2004, with four consecutive seasons in the top tier and a participation in the

in the 2006–2007 season, reaching the round of 32. After just one year in Serie B due to relegation in 2008, Spinelli brought Livorno back to Serie A in June 2009, but the team did not manage to avoid another relegation. After three seasons in Serie B, the "amaranto" returned to Serie A on June 2, 2013, but due to many difficulties, they were relegated again at the end of the season. In April 2014, Spinelli began negotiations to sell the club to Livorno native Stefano Bandecchi, an entrepreneur and founder of Niccolò Cusano University, but the deal fell through. In the 2014–2015 season, the team missed the playoffs (lost in the last match with Pescara), and the following year, it was relegated to Serie C after 14 years. Starting in the 2016–2017 season, Spinelli worked for the club's revival by including Igor Protti in the club's ranks, achieving a third-place finish and a playoff spot (reaching the quarter-finals, where they lost to Reggiana). The following year, the club reorganized with the entry of new minority shareholders and built a competitive team aiming to win the championship, which happened on April 28, 2018: thanks to a home draw against

Carrarese Carrarese Calcio 1908, commonly referred to as Carrarese, is an Italian football club based in Carrara, Tuscany. The team plays in Serie B, second tier of Italian football, after promotion from Serie C in 2023–24. History The club was foun ...

and the simultaneous defeat of

Siena Siena ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 ...

, the amaranto returned to Serie B with one match to spare. In the newly found Serie B, Spinelli (no longer supported by the minority shareholder) chose Cristiano Lucarelli as coach and Alessandro Diamanti as the main signing for the midfield. The primary goal was a peaceful salvation. The start of the season was complicated and yielded few results. On November 6, 2018 (shortly after the coach's dismissal), the president announced his resignation along with his son, the club's CEO, Roberto Spinelli. With the new relegation to

Serie C The Serie C (), officially known as Serie C NOW for sponsorship purposes, is the third-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie B and Serie A. The Lega Italiana Calcio Professionistico (Lega Pro) is the governing ...

, on September 11, 2020 (after 21 seasons at the helm, including 6 years in

and 10 years in

), Spinelli announced the sale to Rosettano Navarra (21%) and other entrepreneurs (69%), keeping 10% of the shares for himself.

Honours

* Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic — Rome, December 27, 1990

References

External links

Gruppo Spinelli

Porto di Genova: CULMV, Spinelli e Grimaldi indagati

Spinelli Vs Messina. La telenovelas continua

Multipurpose: accordo segreto tra Messina e Spinelli

Aldo Spinelli: abusivo è bello!
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spinelli, Aldo 20th-century Italian businesspeople 21st-century Italian businesspeople 1940 births Commanders of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic Living people