Joseph Portelli acquires Italian Eccellenza club for €2 million, Mbong and Bonello to leave Spartans

Ħamrun Spartans president Joseph Portelli announced that he has bought a club in the Italian Eccellenza championship, but stopped short of revealing the name of the team.

Speaking during the club’s annual general meeting, the Ħamrun Spartans president confirmed that the deal to buy the Italian club had cost two million euros, while he also revealed that goalkeeper Henry Bonello and winger Joseph Mbong were both set to leave the club.

Portelli has been looking to buy an Italian club for several months now, and earlier this year, he had a bid rejected by Italian Serie D side Siena 1904 and was in advanced talks to take over Nocerina Calcio, only for the deal to fall through after the due diligence exercise.

Now, the Gozitan entrepreneur has confirmed that he has completed the acquisition of an Italian Eccellenza club.

“I have acquired a club in Serie E,” Portelli told the Ħamrun Spartans supporters.

“The deal has cost me two million euros, so not a small fee, but the club enjoys a great tradition and until a few years ago they were still in the Italian Serie A.

“They have a great following, and in fact, they have around 6,000 fans watching their home matches in the Italian league. This deal will help us become an even stronger team as I plan to help the team move up the ranks in Italian football, and once the team is in the Serie C, I can give opportunities to Maltese players to showcase their talent there.

“Added to that, this venture at an Italian club will help me attract better foreign players that we can use for our European matches.”

Although Portelli refused to give any details of this new club, according to information gathered by Times of Malta in recent weeks, it looks like the Gozo magnate has acquired Ferrara Calcio Ars et Labor, who were formerly known as SPAL Calcio.

The club enjoys a great following week in week out, and until 2020, they were still in the Italian Serie A.

This season, Ferrara Calcio reached the promotion play-offs but were knocked out in the semi-finals by Santegidiese and will remain in the Eccellenza championship even next season.

Turning back his thoughts on the upcoming season for Ħamrun Spartans, Portelli confirmed that the club decided to keep coach Giacomo Modica for at least the first part of the season.

“Coach Giacomo Modica will be at the helm of the team when pre-season starts next week,” Portelli said.

“Modica was instrumental in building the players’ fitness in last season’s pre-season, and that helped us a lot in managing to secure an historic qualification to the League Phase of the Conference League, and I believe that we will keep him in charge in the first part of the season.”

Portelli said that Joseph Mbong and Henry Bonello, whose contract with the Spartans expired at the end of the season, will not remain at the club after they both informed him that they didn’t want to work with Modica.

The Ħamrun Spartans president said that he couldn’t accept their request and decided not to renew their contract, and thus they will not be part of the first team next season.

Portelli reassured the fans that the team is set to be severely strengthened this summer and is planning to increase his transfer budget to 3.25 million euros.

He confirmed that the club is set to start announcing their new signings as from next week, and among the acquisitions are two wingers.

“I believe that we have acquired foreign players that are of a higher level than last season, and hopefully the new acquisitions will settle at the club as I believe that they can help the team to reach better technical performances than last season,” Portelli said.

“Ħamrun Spartans are one of the seeded teams in the Conference League first qualifying round draw and hopefully the draw will be kind to us so that we can manage to emulate last season’s feat of reaching the group stages of the UEFA competition.”