Leonardo Aleotti - Club manager (Brera FC)
For the record we heard about a european tournament while we started following the Prague Raptors. This team is an amateur squad, with foreign players (about 80% of foreigners), with the values of diversity, education, innovation and respect. "Prague Raptors are a progressive, modern Football Club with a passion to help make the world a better place, whilst playing some decent football!". The first game we watched, from the team and this tournament, was the one against Falke, the atmosphere was incredible (The game). So we decided to look closer to this tournament, but unfortunately for us it was the end ... The week after, the Finals took place, and we watched the only win of a Manchester's club in Europe this year. We decided to interview the people behind this initiative, and we got in contact with Leonardo Aleotti.
Can you present yourself and the project of FENIX in a few words ?
Leonardo: First things first, I'm Leonardo Aleotti, Club
Manager for Brera FC and as such the first promoter and organizer of the FENIX
Trophy. The very idea of the FENIX Trophy was developed in the first by the
Brera FC president (who happens to be my father) and me in the fall/winter of
2020, when the second wave of Covid kicked in and leagues were suspended once
again. We have always been an out-of-the-box club (reference to our history on
our website to learn more) and we thought it would be cool to sort of find and
bring along like-minded clubs and peculiar football experiences within amateur
football (of course) all over Europe - jokingly, that would have given us a
European dimension too, closing up the gap with our giant neighbours Inter
Milan and AC Milan.
This is how the idea was born, and from then we started
putting together a project of an Innovative tournament involving European Non-professional clubs through a sense of amicable Friendship among teams
and clubs, with some mechanisms to enhance hospitality and make it - in a word
- Xenial
That's basically the genesis, and from this we moved to
search the clubs
How did you pick and approach the 8 teams ? (Brera FC, ASD Lodigiani Calcio, Prague Raptors, HFC Falke EV, CD Cuenca, FC United ofManchester, AFC DWS, AKS Zly)
Leonardo: This second phase was a thorough research of some
relevant experiences in each European country: we knew FC Utd of Man and
Lodigiani (plus it was easy to pick in UK and Italy), but all the others we had
to really scratch the surface.
We search on the internet, we asked journalists and
bloggers, and we succeeded in putting together a variety of football
experiences, all beautiful but also all different from each other.
The connection with them was mainly via mail, although it's not the simplest method, and actually a lot of good was made by the fact that we found some interconnections between the clubs (guys from Valencia had a distant connection with Manchester, same between Warsaw and Prague.
How do you manage to make the FENIX and the domestic championship at the same time ?
Leonardo: That is really simple for us because we only play
on Sundays and weather-wise we don't have any issues here in Milan. It was
however a problem for other clubs due to a busy schedule, but we created a very
flexible calendar in which the dates are proposed by the away team (also to
reduce flight tickets costs, and take advantage of some deals), plus we had to
play 6 games in a year so it wasn't too much of a trouble.
We did have to face the Covid uncertainty, and we had to get UEFA's permission and approval to start the tournament, but O have to say it worked out very quickly and efficiently, so it was all pretty good
You have pretty good communication, live games, supporters groups etc… What is the next step for the FENIX trophy ?
Leonardo: First of all, thank you, the Innovativeness does rely on the idea of a continental trophy among non-professional clubs, but also in technological standards we work to keep up, such as the live streaming of every game, and in a way (but we can do more) with the social media comms. The next step is definitely enlarging the network, as we want to expand to new clubs and new countries and more people, because the first year we are a beautiful little innovation, but comes the second year we won't be an innovation, we'll still be beautiful, but we need to stop being little. The final transition will be when we arrive to a knock-out format, but it might be too long of a shot now to double the participants and completely change the formula, so for next year we will stick to this format, change a little the Finals event, and have 12 clubs instead of 8. From the following season, we should be able to reach 16 and evolve. Then who knows, a lot can still change on so many terms, but one thing is for sure, we are just getting started and we are not going to stop!
Every team looks friend with each other and that changes the
vision of competition, how can you explain that ?
Leonardo: The idea of friendship among clubs is crucial to
the identity of the tournament. As I said, we came up with the idea for the
Fenix Trophy because we wanted to find people who lived football with the same
passion and amusement as we do, and - differently from the other games we play
in the league - we wanted it to be a celebration of joy, a gathering of new
friends
That’s why the F in the Fenix
From what we know it’s really hard to schedule tournaments, what have you been through to make this European league happen ?
Leonardo: It took a lot of hard work, done by brilliant
people and it was actually easier than what it looks. It was all self made so
we came up with a schedule for ourselves and we were able to maintain it.
In terms of paperwork, the “hardest” part was definitely
getting UEFA’s approval, but thanks to some good connections that was quite
quick
WHAT IF ? One of the clubs goes to the pro ? Some of the
players of the league get linked with Pro clubs ? Some crazy rich people want
to buy the concept ?
Leonardo: Well,
1) we’d stay friends, and of course we’d be happy for them
for turning into the big leagues, but there wouldn’t be the chance for them to
keep playing in the tournament
2) that does happen already, surely at a youth level, but
that’s only a chance for us to be happy for them, they’re evolving into a
different environment and they should be proud of it, though they’re not
non-pro anymore
3) it’s sealed and trademarked so I’m expecting the big
bucks ahahah - jokes aside, to be fair I don’t know what I would do, but as
much as I love what we’ve done I believe we’re still far enough from getting
into that size
PS: Nerazzuro o rossonero ? ⚫️🔵 SBNN team is fan of Inter
