The "DEAcademy Italia" project unveiled
The event was attended by 31 affiliated clubs from all across Italy
The representatives of 31 Atalanta affiliated clubs (namely,17 from Lombardy while the others represented various Italian regions) convened at the Hotel Palace in Zingonia with the main executives from the black-and-blue Youth System for the customary start-of-season summit.
During the gathering, the DEAcademy project, namely the new and improved framework of the Club's nationwide affiliation concept, was thus unveiled and presented to the attending audience of 61 participants, of which 9 attended remotely.
Starting from the "DEAcademy Bergamo" (reserved to the 16 affiliated Clubs based in the Orobic city) before enlarging the scope to a nationwide approach with "DEAcademy Italia" and then culminating with the ambitious "DEAcademy World" project, the Club opted for a "glocal" stance to strengthen the already existing bonds with the local territory through a hand-on approach that favours one-to-one dedicated interactions with its affiliated clubs by leveraging on the individual geographical traits, as the first step of the way. By doing so, Atalanta aim to convey the founding values of their Youth System, those same values that have always been deemed as a key differential factor, to all Parties involved through a broad-based educational programme.
The event was attended by the Director General for the Corporate Area Andrea Fabris, who cut the ribbon with the official greeting from the Club. Following in the footsteps of Atalanta's DG, the floor was then held by the likes of: Giancarlo Finardi, Deputy Head of Atalanta Academy, CSR Manager Martina Quintarelli, Head of the Performance Area Roberto Niccolai, Key Coordinator of the 5-a-side project Marcello Esposito, Technical Coordinator of DEAcademy Italia Maurizio Marchesini and Stefano Bonaccorso, Chief Technical Officer of the Grassroots Football division.