Paul Baccaglini is an Italian

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some specie ...

, and former chairman of

U.S. Città di Palermo Palermo Football Club, more simply known as Palermo F.C. or Palermo (; scn, Paliemmu, link=no, ), is an Italian football club based in the Sicilian city of Palermo, conventionally founded for the first time on 1 November 1900. Among the club� ...

, football (soccer) club based in

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Baccaglini is an eccentric personality, known for his career in television. In 2017, he made news by attempting to acquire the Palermo soccer club from former owner

Maurizio Zamparini Maurizio Zamparini (9 June 1941 – 1 February 2022) was an Italian businessman. He was the owner and director of football club U.S. Città di Palermo between July 2002 – February 2017 and from July 2017 – December 2018. Biography Zampari ...

; the takeover, originally agreed in March 2017, was called off by June of the same year before being finalized.

Biography

Raised in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

with an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

father and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

mother, Baccaglini was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

but spent most of his youth in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Baccaglini's mother came to the

to study

Neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, while his father is from Washington. His parents separated when he was 15 years old. After graduating from high school, Baccaglini later moved to his mother's native Italy to pursue a career in

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

. Baccaglini played two years with the Serie C Gold Unione Basket Padova basketball club from 2002 to 2003, concluding his brief career with the Solesino basketball club.

Television Personality

Leaving behind his sporting career, Baccaglini transitioned into work in radio, working for Radio Padova as host of the program "The Groove" for three years on RTL 102.5. Following his success in radio, Baccaglini began work for

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

and

Italia 1 Italia 1 (Italian pronunciation ) is an Italian free-to-air television channel on the Mediaset network, owned by MFE - MediaForEurope. It is oriented at both young and adult people. Italia 1 was launched on 3 January 1982 and, originally, was o ...

, appearing regularly on the program Le Iene, on which he interviewed numerous personalities in politics. Baccaglini was known for his use of sarcasm and irony, and the program was well-known for deploying its hosts to dupe public figures for comic effect. Baccaglini claimed in an interview with ''

La Gazzetta dello Sport ''La Gazzetta dello Sport'' (; "The Sports Gazette") is an Italian daily newspaper dedicated to coverage of various sports. Founded in 1896, it is the most widely read daily newspaper of any kind in Italy (in 2018). History and profile ''La ...

'' that he has more than 60 tattoos.

U.S. Città di Palermo

Baccaglini negotiated the purchase of

in secret for more than one year before finally coming to terms with former owner

in March 2017. As part of the agreement, he was named as club chairman until the takeover was not finalized. In his initial press conference, he declared that his goal was to bring Palermo to be one of the best teams in

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

, and to compete in the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

. Despite his initial enthusiasm for the potential takeover, Palermo's win-loss record did not improve enough to prevent the club from relegating to

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...

for the 2017-18 season. On 4 July 2017, Baccaglini resigned as Palermo chairman, falling back into the hands of Zamparini, after the necessary funds were not in place.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baccaglini, Paul 1984 births Living people Basketball players from Chicago Italian football chairmen and investors Palermo FC chairmen and investors