Empoli has just under 50,000 inhabitants and over 7,000 stadium season ticket holders. Do a quick calculation and you will realize the crazy relationship between inhabitants/subscribers and the small miracle that is repeated every year in this small Tuscan city.
In Empoli, football is a family matter, and the family in question is the Corsi family.
Fabrizio, the founder, has been president since July 1991, 33 years, and under his presidency Empoli has carved out a very important space for itself in the Italian football scene, also reaching qualification for the UEFA Cup and providing numerous talents thanks to a sector exceptional youth recognized internationally: the list of players who landed in the top Italian and European clubs coming from the Empoli cantera is endless.
For some years now, his daughter Rebecca has been increasingly present alongside the President, currently vice president, CEO of Empoli and councilor in Lega Serie A, the first woman since the days of Rosella Sensi.
The first time I heard about Rebecca was about ten years ago when I went to play a charity match with the Italian national singers team at the “Castellani” stadium in Empoli. When we entered the changing rooms we were left speechless by the furnishings, attention to detail and, seeing our amazement, the custodians of the stadium told us that the credit belonged to the “President’s Daughter”, yes, that’s exactly what they said, because at that time it was still only the “President’s Daughter”.
The second time I heard about Rebecca was with my friend DJ Federico Scavo who, since this year, has been entertaining the fans before the matches at the “Carlo Castellani Computer Gross Arena” stadium in Empoli with his DJ sets.Carletto, you can’t understand the enthusiasm Rebecca gave me, thanks to her and the guys from Empoli I got back into football from which I had distanced myself for several years now.”
Today she is “The President’s Daughter”. Rebecca Corsi and that’s it.
A frank, intelligent, direct woman with very clear ideas: “At Empoli I took care of and followed all company departments without exception, after which, having graduated from Polimoda in Strategic Marketing, it was natural to take care of marketing at Empoli. Obviously at the beginning there were some prejudices, as is normal, but I believe in these years that I have demonstrated that I know how to live in this world and that I also have various things to say and above all to do. I live and thrive on pressure and, unfortunately or fortunately, I also put pressure on the people who work with me”.Rebecca’s hand and pressure have been felt in recent years, starting with the rebrand of the logo, the renovation of the Monteboro Sports Center and, of course, the match shirts.
Yes, because the reason for our chat obviously concerns the t-shirt, how it is born, who thinks of it, how long does the gestation last: “The shirts are mine and Gianmarco Lupi’s (Empoli’s Organizing Director). Paradoxically, despite having attended Polimoda, a huge worry of mine is that I don’t know how to draw.”
Since 2018, Empoli has been linked to the Italian company Kappa: “I am very happy and satisfied with this synergy that was born, Kappa reflects our values exactly, it has a corporate approach very similar to ours and I am happy to have renewed the agreement with them for another 5 years.”
I particularly like this year’s shirts, but it can’t be easy to invent something new every year. How did the graphic development of the shirt come about? Does it start from you, does it start from Kappa? “Kappa sends us about ten proposals with the new materials and their graphic ideas, at which point the ball is in our court to make our changes. I’m starting to shuffle the cards, but with some fixed points: I don’t like too many colors on the shirt, maximum two, and with the assumption that the first shirt must absolutely maintain its traditional blue, I’m telling you this because, I must admit that in some seasons we got the wrong pantone…”
Rebecca this year with the fluorescent yellow details and sponsors on the first shirt you therefore dared: “The Fluo one was Gianmarco’s idea, but once the agreement was reached with the sponsors, because obviously everyone has their own colors and their own needs, the result was really very beautiful.”
Having clarified the presence of neon on the first shirt, let’s go and see the other two shirts which, as I wrote previously, I really appreciated. “Considering that, as I told you, I want to maintain tradition on the first shirt, on the other two we allow ourselves some “creative license” and this year we wanted to pay homage to our city both with regards to the second shirt, historically white, and for regarding the third. For the second I embraced the idea of Kappa. I immediately liked the marble effect and consequently the homage to the Collegiate Church of San’Andrea was natural, I was just hesitant about the shades of the numbers, I didn’t want them to have a “stain” effect and with the gray shade we succeeded. For the third, however, I have to give you a necessary premise: the third shirt is usually the most “risky” shirt, I like to change it up, but remaining faithful to tradition. I didn’t want the presence of pink to be too prevalent so, when we arrived at the solution you saw (the shirt used with Lazio in Rome,) I was immediately convinced because the pink scratches represent the scratches of a lion cutting the fabric, hence the homage to the Piazza dei Leoni (Piazza Farinata degli Uberti ed.) and the lion’s scratches are also present on the team bus.”
It seemed obvious to me to ask her whether the father “interferes” or in any case has his say on the shirts: “Look, if it were up to my father we would play in the wine-colored shirt (it seems that Empoli’s first match in 1920 was played with a shirt of an unclear shade of red, for some a not too bright red, for others closer to amaranth. In the year of the centenary, in 2020, the ‘Empoli played 3 home games with the wine-colored shirt), and in any case no it does not interfere with the creation of the shirts” and do you have the opportunity to have your say in the sporting field? “I have never done it and I never will, the only thing I have done, sometimes, was express my opinion on the choice of some person to join the club, but not in the sporting field. My father will never admit it, but I know he took my opinion into consideration on the matter…”.
One of the scenes I like most is seeing you framed on television next to each other at the stadium: “But do you know that I don’t even watch the game? Or rather, of course I follow the phases of the match, but I have to pay more attention to my father who during the matches seems to go into a competitive trance. He doesn’t recognize friends, acquaintances, anyone and he thinks: if before the match is over, if someone leaves the stadium and goes to greet him and congratulate him on the victory, he gets angry… So imagine how I will be able to experience the match…”.
With Rebecca we talk about everything, ranging from what would be her favorite color (Navy Blue: communication, the bus and in the past even some Empoli shirts have been of this color), to new technologies: “This year, with my brother Gherardo and Wov Labs we have developed a particular system to give a special experience to our fans. On the match shirt, under the team crest, we have inserted a chip which, if viewed with your smartphone, tells you whether the shirt is authentic or not, and this is just the beginning because in the not-so-near future, we would like to see the same system at the stadium allows our fans to have access to all the scoresheets, notes and information on the match in progress.”
We talked about the stadium presented a few months ago: “In the best case scenario we could play the first match in exactly three years, but it’s better not to create false illusions and let’s say that four years could be the right time for the completion of the works”.
One last question: is there something you would like to do, a wish to come true?
“In my head I already have a whole series of improvements in mind for our sports center in Monteboro, but don’t make me say anything else…”It’s nice to know that behind teams like Empoli there are people like Rebecca and her father Fabrizio. As they say in these cases: “These are things that are good for football”.
The DJ Carlo Carletto Nicolettiour historic collaborator (author and producer of the WebSeries GoalCar launched by our network), presents and tells us anecdotes, curiosities and unpublished details about the playing shirts, balls, shoes and much more that have made and continue to make the history of football, not just Italian football.