There’s a smell of grass in Manchester. Don’t get the wrong idea: it’s a football pitch; specifically the historic turf at Old Trafford, the temple of Manchester United. Omar Berrada, the club’s chief executive, has decided to put the sods of the football pitch up for sale.
They’re preserved in a 7-by-7-centimetre package: an acrylic cube containing the turf in a transparent casing bearing the Manchester United Old Trafford logo, complete with a photograph of the stadium. The price of this relic is £125. It’s honey on the arsenic poisoning the fans, who are furious about the team’s results, writes Il Giornale.
The turf is a piece of history: the same pitch for fourteen years, the one on which Manchester United celebrated victories with Rooney and Giggs, Rio Ferdinand and De Gea, Pogba and Lukaku. The club is exploiting the "green" because it’s deep in the "red": a billion and a half pounds, twice its turnover. This "green" operation could be a good idea for the managers of San Siro – or rather its owners, Inter and Milan, who acquired the stadium from the city council in exchange for a fee around €195 million.
The pitch at the San Siro, though relaid several times, still retains its timeless charm. Unlike Old Trafford, however, San Siro is not home to just one team: Inter and Milan fans share that ground in joint ownership.
Any attempt to sell off a portion of the turf would risk ending in an auction with no buyers. But, let’s think positive: taking home a piece of San Siro would be like smelling the aroma of grilled sausages and roast chestnuts once more. Soon enough, it’ll all go up in smoke...
