“Leaving Roma is like dying. I feel like it’d be better if I died”. – Francesco Totti announces he’s leaving Roma
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The former Roma captain Francesco Totti left his position within the club’s management on Monday in a move that will increase fan opposition to the team’s American owner, James Pallotta. While he has been a technical director since retiring from playing two years ago, Totti said he was left out of decisions about the hiring and firing of coaches and moves in the player transfer market.
“I never had the chance to express myself. They never involved me,” Totti said in a news conference at the Italian Olympic Committee. “The first year that can happen but by the second [year] I understood what they wanted to do … They knew of my desire to offer a lot to this squad but they never wanted it. They kept me out of everything. It’s a day that I hoped never would have come.”
After 30 seasons with his hometown club – 25 of them as a player – and leading the club to their last Serie A title in 2001, the 42-year-old Totti remains Roma’s most emblematic figure. “Presidents come and go, coaches come and go, players come and go. But not emblems,” Totti said. “This is far worse than retiring as a player. Leaving Roma is like dying. I feel like it’d be better if I died.”
“In the end they managed to get what they wanted. “Since the Americans came in eight years ago, they have tried in every way to sideline us. “I’m saying see you later, not goodbye to Roma because, seen from the outside, it is impossible to keep Totti out of Roma. “Now I’ll take a different path, when when the time comes for another owner to bank on me, I’ll be ready”.
