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A top-flight Italian soccer club received a rather ominous delivery in the mail this week amid season-long struggles on the pitch: a severed pig’s head.
Sampdoria, a team in Italy’s Serie A, had the frightening package delivered in a box to club headquarters this week. The head was accompanied by a message for former club president Massimo Ferrero and current vice president Antonio Rome that read “the next heads will be yours,” a spokesman for the club said, per Reuters.
The spokesman also told Reuters that the organization called the police to the scene.
“UC Sampdoria expresses profound outrage and indignation in the face of yet another serious act of intimidation,” the club said in a statement Saturday.
As Saturday’s statement implies, this isn’t the first time this year that the club has received a threatening message. In January, a blank bullet was delivered to Sampdoria’s offices with additional threats directed toward Ferrero and previous club owner Edoardo Garrone, according to Reuters.
Ferrero resigned from his position as club president in 2021 after he was arrested on financial charges that stemmed from an investigation into alleged bankruptcy crimes, according to Reuters. The arrest was unrelated to any club operations so the 71-year-old has maintained control of the club through family holdings.
Fans have grown concerned with Sampdoria’s performance this season as the club sits in 19th in the Serie A table and in serious danger of relegation. Through 23 matches, the Genoa-based club has just 11 points and is eight points behind the current mark needed to stay up in Italy’s top league.
This isn’t the first instance of an Italian club receiving a menacing package in the mail. According to Reuters, the sporting director of Palermo received a goat’s head in 2006 and back in 1999, the president of Reggina was sent the head of a bull.
