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ACF Fiorentina is pleased to announce that it has reached a partnership agreement with Pune City FC, a franchise in the newly created Indian Super League (ISL).
Created by the Wadhawan Group and sponsored by Salman Khan, Pune City FC is based in Pune, India’s seventh largest metropolis with more than eight million inhabitants. Pune is also the country’s fourth largest industrial producer.
Pune City FC’s head coach will be Franco Colomba and he will be assisted by a backroom team with international experience – Juri Bartoli, Giovanni Mei and Piero Spinosa representing the Italian contingent – together with a team of local professionals.
The squad is still in development and, in accordance with ISL regulations, already counts professionals such as Bruno Cirillo, Emanuele Belardi and Daniele Magliocchetti amongst its playing staff. They will soon by joined by Davide Colomba.
The eight-team league will be have an intense schedule, starting in mid September and finishing with the Championship playoffs at the end of November.
Franco Colomba explained: “It is a serious and ambitious project with an important and solid group behind it. I didn’t have any doubts: I like challenges, testing myself and working with motivated people to reach important objectives. Exporting our footballing culture and becoming part of a country with a different history and culture is an experience that doesn’t happen too often and cannot but help to increase my and my staff’s cultural knowledge.”
The partnership between ACF Fiorentina and Pune City FC was developed by Fiorentina International and goes alongside the work begun in the United States with NorCal Premier Soccer and the collaboration project signed in spring with the town of Ascona in Switzerland.
Exporting the know-how obtained by professionals at the club – integrating it with the abilities of local partners and creating relations with the territory and local institutions – is one of the main activities developed abroad by ACF Fiorentina aimed at internationalising the brand.
Special thanks go to legal firm Baker and Mckenzie of Madrid, Studio Pecoraro Ricci Armani of Florence and the Capital Fortune Pvt India: their assistance helped make this agreement possible.
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