FLORENCE, ITALY – APRIL 27: Rocco Commisso president of ACF Fiorentina reacts during the Serie A match between Fiorentina and Empoli at Stadio Artemio Franchi on April 27, 2025 in Florence, Italy. (Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images)
Fiorentina and the wider world of Italian football has been shocked by the death of Rocco Commisso. Giancarlo Rinaldi pays tribute to the Tuscan club’s late president and looks back at his time in charge.
Fiorentina and Serie A bids farewell to Rocco Commisso
He blew in like a hurricane from across the Atlantic with his motto “fast, fast, fast” and a desire to get things done. It felt like your Italian-American uncle who had done well in business breezing in with gifts for the family and a grin from ear to ear at being back in his homeland.
Fiorentina – and Serie A in general – is going to miss Rocco B Commisso.
When he arrived in June 2019, he was welcomed with open arms. Although the nearly two decades under the ownership of Diego and Andrea Della Valle had brought the club back from the brink of going out of existence, the gratitude of some sections of the support was wearing thin.
It felt like the time was ripe for a change and so in stepped a bundle of energy buzzing with
enthusiasm to take the club in a new direction.
Suddenly, the famous purple colours of the Renaissance city side became better known outside of Italy. He took the team on a tour round the Bronx where he grew up and gave them a feel for the emigrant experience in the United States. Although he was born in Calabria, this was definitely a takeover with a New York twang.
The classic self-made man, he amassed his fortune at the head of his Mediacom empire but that did not mean he was going to throw his money away. Over time he would grow increasingly frustrated at the snail-like pace of Italian bureaucracy and his dreams of delivering a new stadium for the club would ultimately be thwarted. Instead he provided a state of the art training facility – the Viola Park which carries his name – which will stand as testimony to all he did for
the Tuscan team.
Those first days were full of the typical optimism of a honeymoon period but, of course, in the fickle world of football that never lasts. Under his stewardship, Fiorentina continued their tradition of being the world of Calcio’s nearly-men with a string of almost triumphs in cup competitions. Those memories of Conference League and Coppa Italia are only the more bittersweet now. How special it would have been to deliver a trophy to crown his reign.
There was tragedy, too, with the premature death of general manager Joe Barone in 2024. That rocked the club and left a void which it has struggled to fill. It also deprived Commisso of his right hand man and an important arm on the tiller to guide the Viola. He is still sorely missed.
There must be some Fiorentina fans feeling a little bit embarrassed too about the jibes they aimed at their president recently. There was criticism about the lack of his presence at the club and calls for him to leave. That all has a bit of a hollow ring now that it has emerged just how seriously ill he had been.
Over the past six-and-a-half years or so, Commisso fought his club’s corner with determination and pride. He didn’t always get everything right – nobody does – but the direction he tried to set the Viola on was an ambitious one. He hoped to create a side which stood on firm financial foundations but could also challenge the top teams for titles. The fact that regulations tied his hands on how he could do that was a constant source of annoyance.
With his beloved Fiorentina struggling at the bottom end of the table it would be easy to dismiss his efforts as a failure but that would be truly unfair. The club had finished a disappointing 16th in the season before his arrival and, although the first couple of campaigns – disrupted by the Covid pandemic – saw only small improvements on that performance there was a clear upward trend.
It would be the appointment of Vincenzo Italiano as coach that would really push the team onwards and upwards on the pitch as well as off it.
It would be the three seasons under the current Bologna boss that would really be the pinnacle of the Commisso era in terms of player performance. The Florentines became regulars at the top end of the Serie A table and missed out in finals not once, not twice but three times.
Their most hard luck story was probably a Conference League final against West Ham which they dominated for long spells but got hit with a sucker punch late in the game. It earned their manager a nearly-man tag which he has quickly shaken off with his new employers.
Things never seemed quite as harmonious with Raffaele Palladino in charge although he did steer the club back into Europe. Things, however, seemed to fall apart a bit after that as the coach left and the return of former boss Stefano Pioli turned into something of a disaster.
It resulted in a period of upheaval which ultimately saw long-time sporting director Daniele Pradè shown the door – soon to be replaced by Fabio Paratici – and Paolo Vanoli take over as coach to try to haul the team off bottom spot.
The club has announced that it will play all its fixtures this weekend in honour of Commisso as it is what he would have wanted. There will be an emotional charge to seeing the team take to the field after the loss of their president and they will surely do everything in their power to honour him over the weeks ahead.
Although he had been unable to be as close to the team as he would have wished in his final days it will be hard not to picture him up in the stands beaming down with pride at watching his players take to the pitch. In time, Fiorentina will have to consider how they move forward but for now it will mourn and remember a man who gave everything he
could to making them the force every Viola fan feels they should be.
Rest in peace, Presidente.
