An interview with its Chairman Carlo Gulminelli

Fonderia Morini has interviewed Carlo Gulminelli, Chairman of ASD Calcio Cotignola, who has told them about the Club’s young players and the importance of sport during the pandemic.

The history of A.S.D. Calcio Cotignola

The Club was firstly founded in 1963 under the name of U.S. SFORZA, but the football team as we know it today began to develop in 1980. Thanks to Carlo Gulminelli in that year, the then U.S. Cotignola (born from the merger of the U.S. SFORZA and the Amatori Cotignola) involved Augusto Morini and so Fonderia Morini became the main sponsor of the football team.

In the early 1990s, the First Team reached “Promozione”, one of the highest categories in Italian non-professional football, and then won the 1993/94 regional championship in the “Junior” Category. Again in 1993, the town council of Cotignola made the current team’s sports facility available: five football fields and a stadium with a 600-seat grandstand.

In 2004, after a short period of decline that led the team to the Terza Categoria (the lowest level of "amateur" football in Italy), Roberto Serra became the new Chairman and with him the Club and Team started to grow again. A.S.D. Calcio Cotignola was born, a new name and logo were created in order to start from scratch and give space to the enhancement of the youth sector. In the same year, the first edition of the Campus Estivo Scuola calcio was also organized: a football summer camp for the summer months.

The number of the members increased, the organizational activity became more intense and within a few seasons the Cotignola Calcio First Team was back in Prima Categoria. This success came along having at least one team enrolled in every category of the Italian Football Federation.

The most recent success of the team was the positioning in the “Eccellenza” level (the second most-important of the Italian non-professional leagues) for both the year 2020/21 and 2021/2022.

Latest successes

In 2011, the A.S.D. Calcio Cotignola was awarded with the “Premio Cotogno 2011”, a recognition for the Club's important achievements.

More recently, in 2019, the company also received the “Stella di bronzo al merito sportivo”, an award from the Italian National Olympic Committee for its many years of activity.

Also worth mentioning, in 2013, ASD Calcio Cotignola took part in the Juventus National Academy project of the Italian team of the same name.

To stay updated on ASD Calcio Cotignola, you can follow their Facebook page.