At the end of the preseason tour in the Netherlands and ahead of the team's first official match, scheduled for August 14 on the neutral field of Cesena against Spezia for the round of 64 of Coppa Italia, Venezia FC President Duncan Niederauer took stock of the club's situation:

“It has been a busy offseason for Venezia FC.

Since the first team finished the 22-23 championship:

We opened our new state of the art training facility and company headquarters called Ca’Venezia. This will change the way we are able to work and perform, and we look forward to everyone being together at the facility in the coming days as we prepare for the 23-24 season. We also look forward to sharing our new home with our fans and sponsors.

Our women's team won the Coppa Italia for their division in June, a great achievement and the first trophy ever won by a women's team from Venezia FC.

We embarked on a long-term partnership with Falcade and the first team enjoyed a great pre-season there in July. This promises to be a great relationship between Venezia FC and Falcade.

The mainland stadium project has gained momentum, and thanks to the leadership of Mayor Brugnaro, the plan to build a new stadium that we could play our matches in as early as 2026 appears to be on track.

We launched our pre-match, home and away jerseys for the 23-24 season, and are excited to be launching an additional jersey in September around the Regatta.

With the teams now returning to Ca' Venezia, we expect to have a very busy August. The Serie B championship is scheduled to begin in two weeks, and the transfer window remains open until the end of the month.

Filippo Antonelli,Cristian Molinaro and Gianleonardo Neglia have been very busy, and we are extremely proud of the work they are doing as a team. You should expect to see us make several more changes to the roster before the end of August.

While we are also proud of what we have accomplished for the club and for the city since we took ownership of Venezia FC in early 2020, it is also clear to me that we must always be thinking about how to improve so that we can move forward in the best way possible.

This includes being very focused on how we manage the business of the club. While we have made some wise investments, we have also made some mistakes, and we must be realistic about how to operate a Serie B team given the Italian football financial model.

This has only been made more challenging by the introduction of the salary limitations for this season, which requires that teams try to manage their sporting payroll to €12mm or less. To be clear, we are supportive of this rule, but not of how it is being administered. Being asked to provide a guarantee for any amount over the limit this week instead of at the end of the transfer window is not correct in my opinion, and I have expressed our disappointment to the decision makers. The season has not started, the transfer window is still open for three more weeks and the roster of teams who will be competing in the championship is unknown. How will teams who don't even know if they are in the league comply this week? If our roster changes significantly, as it often does in August, we believe that this should be considered.

Last year's team was built to return to Serie A, and we spared no expense in an effort to achieve that objective. We failed to do so, and as you know, we made a number of changes during the season. The additions of Antonelli, Vanoli and some new players changed our season and our club for the better.

With Antonelli already under contract with Venezia for three years, we have offered Vanoli a new contract that rewards him for his performance and extends his term until at least the 25-26 championship as well.

We believe that Filippo and Paolo, along with Cristian and Gianleonardo, can provide leadership, commitment and continuity. Antonelli and Vanoli will be holding a press conference on Wednesday at Ca' Venezia to answer any questions and to reinforce the following messages:

We will demand from ourselves and our players that we have a winning mentality at all times, not just on the pitch, but off of it as well. We will play with hunger and heart. Our fans deserve nothing less and we owe it to ourselves.


We will operate a business model that builds a roster of young players with potential who will be supported and mentored by experienced players. Players will have to be transferred from time to time to create a sustainable business model. We believe in our leadership team, in our ability to identify strong players and in our ability to develop talent in our youth academy.

We will ask some of our players to restructure their contracts to support the club's ambitions. It will of course be their choice, but we would like players to be here who want to be here and who are committed to the project. We have invested considerably to create an environment where our players can succeed, and we expect them to be partners in our project.

We are excited about the future and what our leadership team can do. The team we are building will be strong, and will play in a way that I am sure will make us all proud. The team and I hope we can count on support from our fans, our sponsors and the community as the new season gets underway.

Forza Venezia!“