BREAKING: Ex Barca youth Viterale is Jetcoin’s bridgehead into La Liga and Serie A
Antoine Viterale is an Italo-French citizen, was born in Hong Kong but was a Singapore resident for much of his youth. As of a few days ago, he’s signed for his fifth club, after Lugano, Espanyol, Chievo and… Barcelona? Not bad for a 19-year-old!
Even stranger, you’re only likely to read about him in this column. Why? Well, for starters, very little is known of him. Finding out anything about the Elusive Mister Vitale is hard going indeed: we know for certain that Swiss club Lugano bought him in 2012-2013, only to move to Espanyol the following season.
How many games did he play for both clubs, you ask? Well, er… we don’t know. Nobody we’ve contacted seems to, either.
Scouring the internet for information, we read that Viterale “helped Espanyol in the 1-0 win over FC beat Barcelona”.
Unless we’re very much mistaken, he’s talking about the two La Liga clubs’ respective B teams…but no-one is quite sure exactly what kind of “help” he brought to Espanyol, nor indeed how many minutes he played . All we know for sure… is that the club let him go at the end of the season.
So… where to next? Chievo! What is it with this kid and staying in the same city? From Barcelona to Espanyol, and now Chievo to crosstown rivals Hellas. The Mussi Volanti signed Viterale last season, only to see him play 2 minutes against Udinese, 18 against Lanciano and 39 nagainst Cesena, all in the month of January.
From then on… nothing. Benched, consigned to thje stands (especially the stands), Viterale’s career trajectory is in stark contrast to how E&A Branding and Marketing, a Singapore-based agency, describe the youngster. Incidentally, among the many projects A&E has, one is called AV Management.
“AV” just so happens to stand for Antoine Viterale. On the agency’s website, it is claimed that Vitale is “playing for the first team and is an important element of the youth team that won the Serie A title in 2013-2014”.
Really? What is behind all of this? And why is AV to be found posing like David Beckham in The Millernary magazine, talking about his time in Hong Kong and showing off a Tag Heuer watch? And what’s he doing in Verona, of all places?
The answer’s simple: Antoine Viterale represents Jetcoin, Verona’s newest sponsor, able to contribute a whopping €250.000 to the Scaligeri’s cause.
This phenomenon could soon take Serie A by storm, and change the balance of power between its clubs. Last season, Jetcoin was Chievo’s sponsor, where Viterale just so happened to be playing. When the 19-year-old moved to Verona… you guessed it, Jetcoin ended their partnership with Chievo.
What is Jetcoin? It’s a “crypto-currency”, an internet currency, specifically designed to be invested in the careers of young players. (Find more detailed descriptions here, here and here). Antoine Viterale, in this context, happens to be the first “crypto-sponsored sportsman”. And the only one, at least for now.
So this is the youngster that Andrea Mandorlini has been lumbered him, someone who seems to be a player in name only. Can’t say we blame the coach if he were to react badly: Hellas are the only Serie A team to have yet to register a win this season, the football is poor, Mandorlini is close to the brown envelope and the transfer market’s oddities extend beyond the Viterale case. You couldn’t make it up.
The club itself has further reason to worry: Mario Gerevini’s article in October 12th’s edition of the Corriere della Sera showed just how complicated Verona’s structure is, questioning whether owner Maurizio Setti is nothing more than a straw man.
Though he has denied everything, Setti has since been named as a Serie A counsellor, replacing someone who left last season. His name? Tommaso Ghirardi. Good start!
By Pippo Russo
Translated by Edo Dalmonte
