Molfetta
The club issued a notice on their website, naming two main reasons for such a decision. The first reason was the lack of funds due to the fact they were not able to sign a sponsorship deal with any company for the next season.
“We have never been given the chance to get a multi-year sponsorship contract to make, at least, a medium-term plan to get financial support in line with League’s standards, which would have allowed us to ‘build certain dreams’,” Molfetta published.
Reason number 2 was the limited seating capacity of their gymnasium.
“More than three years ago, the League brought the regulation that each team, starting from 2017/18, needs to have a gymnasium with the capacity of at least 3,000 seats. You know that we do not have such a capacity. Our numbers, after the expansion of the structure, reach to 1,682 spectators. The ‘PalaPoli’, our mythical gym, no longer meets the parameters that the League imposes and we are aware of this. We should go and find an alternative gymnasium. Needless to say that we thought about it,” Molfetta added.
Thus, a club that was founded in the 1960s will leave Serie A1 after four consecutive seasons, which were, in the same time, the only seasons of the club in an Italian top division. Molfetta finished 2016/2017 Serie A1 Regular Season as the 10th in the rankings, not advancing to the playoffs but avoiding relegation.
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