Parma: Updating the Situation of the Stricken Sister

After two weeks of postponed fixtures, Parma resumed playing games on Sunday and earned a 0-0 draw against Atalanta.

It was good to see the Crusaders on the field again after the turmoil of the last 14 days. The club was unable to pay for stadium security or team travel unaided, and the players, looking for guarantees for the club's future, refused to take the field.

After a Friday summit, the Lega Serie A approved a €5 million package to keep the team afloat until the end of the season. The package was approved in a vote of 16-1 with three abstentions. The only club to vote against the bailout was Cesena, whose president Giorgio Lugaresi had previously insisted that the club should be saved by settling its debts the way the Seahorses did in 2012 rather than by being bailed out.

Even then, there was still some doubt over whether the team would go through with the game. Parma's players met with both FIGC president Carlo Tavecchio and players' union head Damiano Tommasi after the bailout package was finalized and were not initially impressed.

"We want guarantees reliable at 100 percent for the club's employees," said captain Alessandro Lucarelli after the meetings (h/t Football Italia). "We've been told they'll be given, but we want the facts. We also want the rules that allowed for all this mess to be changed."

The divisions within the team were clear when it was revealed that the decision to play against Atalanta was not unanimous. But the game did go ahead, and the Crusaders acquitted themselves well by nabbing a point against an Atalanta side threatened with relegation themselves.

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Where do things go from here? Much depends on the bankruptcy hearing scheduled for March 19. That date will decide whether the club will be liquidated outright or if they will go into controlled administration and have a chance to pay off their debts in the offseason and play in Serie B next season rather than starting from scratch in the bottom of the Italian league system.

The main issue that the bankruptcy hearing will decide is whether or not the team can go forward with Giampietro Manenti as its owner. Manenti has repeatedly insisted that he will produce the money to keep the team afloat, but there has been no apparent evidence that it is coming.

The mayor of the city of Parma, Federico Pizzarotti, has repeatedly criticized Manenti and called him "not credible" in remarks to Calciomercato (h/t Football Italia) early last week. His fellow Serie A owners are similarly wary of the newcomer. Genoa president Enrico Preziosi told reporters going into the Friday league meetings (again relayed by Football Italia) "I don't trust Manenti. He came before the Lega and said that in one or two days he'd sort things out at Parma. Three weeks have passed and nothing is in place."

Manenti's trustworthiness will be an issue for bankruptcy court to decide. That decision will be the key to whether he keeps his place going forward—and potentially the fate of the storied Seventh Sister. Pizzarotti said in his Calciomercato remarks that "several parties who are interested in Parma have come forward"—a subtle way of trying to force a sale from the outside.

While Manenti did say at the beginning of March that he would be open to a sale if he received an offer, Pizzarotti's insinuations have infuriated him. In a statement from the team's website (h/t Football Italia) Manenti shot back at the mayor, saying he "is not the owner of Parma FC and he has no mandate whatsoever to broker the sale of the club."

Ten days from now we will know the outcome of the Parma saga. Until then, we will have to watch and wonder—and root for the players and employees of the club to come out of this nightmare in the best-case scenarios.