Bari’s spectacular fall from grace
The Italians signed David Platt for a British record fee – now they’re in Serie C
It’s 30 years since Bari hosted the European Cup final and snapped up one of English football’s biggest stars – but sadly, they’re unlikely to be repeating either feat any time soon.
Based on Italy’s south- east coast, the city has a population of only 325,000 but boasts the 58,000- capacity Stadio San Nicola – built for the 1990 World Cup, it’s the third- biggest stadium in Italy, behind Milan’s San Siro and Rome’s Stadio Olimpico. Within a year of opening, it was the venue for Red Star Belgrade’s European Cup triumph over Marseille.
Bari lured David Platt from Aston Villa for £ 5.5 million two months later – a record fee for a transfer involving a British club. “I didn’t even know where Bari was,” the midfielder ( top) admitted. Promoted to Serie A in 1989, the yoyo club had recruited Gordon Cowans and Paul Rideout from Villa during their previous top- flight foray – but this time they were ambitious to better their highest ever finish of seventh.
They didn’t: Platt netted 11 goals, but Bari were relegated that season and their English star was sold to Juventus. The club later got back to Serie A on three occasions, but never lasted long – Antonio Conte ( right) took them up in 2009 but departed that summer, and doom followed when promising stopper Leonardo Bonucci joined Juve a year later.
Bari were docked points for three successive campaigns in Serie B because of financial irregularities and a match- fixing scandal, then got declared bankrupt in 2014 before being kicked out of the second tier in 2018 – a year also notable for an incident when fans of local rivals Pescara hung a dead cockerel outside the home of manager Fabio Grosso.
Bari are now owned by the film company of Napoli chief Aurelio De Laurentiis – his son is the club’s chairman – and have had to climb back from Serie D, finishing fourth in the third tier last term. Their stadium has become a white elephant: crowds dropped as low as 1,000 in 2013, almost as if building a 58,000 arena in an outpost city wasn’t such a great idea after all. Remember that 46,000 World Cup stadium they were planning in Plymouth?
Attempts to somehow find a use for the Stadio San Nicola have seen the venue recently linked with the wacky idea of hosting next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, but that won’t happen – largely because the stadium is wholly unsuitable. That European Cup final seems a long time ago now...