A very long round of applause accompanied the arrival of Gigi Riva's coffin in front of the Basilica of Bonaria, where at 4pm the Archbishop of Cagliari Giuseppe Baturi will celebrate the funeral of the rossoblù scudetto striker and top scorer of the national team.
Tens of thousands of people were present to say their final farewell to Rombo di Tuono, many already lined up since this morning, having come from all over Sardinia.
A giant screen was also set up in the square below the church to follow the mass
Many wanted to say goodbye
Gigi Riva also at the funeral home, with lines over a kilometer long.
From the federal president, Gabriele
Gravina
, to the Italian coach Luciano
Spalletti
, passing through
the 2006 world champions
: the FIGC delegation, which arrived in Cagliari late in the morning, paid homage to Gigi Riva, first with the presence at the funeral home and in the afternoon with the presence at the funeral of the absolute top scorer in the history of the national team.
With Gravina, the FIGC delegation arriving from Rome includes Matteo Marani and Giancarlo Abete, presidents respectively of the Lega Pro and the Amateurs, the former n.1 of the federation, Franco Carraro, Spalletti with the Italian team manager and 2006 world champion Gigi
Buffon , Fabio Cannavaro
who was captain of that Italy, and then
Simone Perrotta, Marco Amelia, Angelo Peruzzi, Marco Tardelli and Giancarlo De Sisti
.
The president of CONI Giovanni Malagò will also participate in the funeral.
Video Riva, Spalletti: 'A hero who didn't want the spotlight'
"
Heroes like Riva will never stop being close to us
: he had this great quality of being humble and respectable. He had the characteristic of being a protagonist without wanting to attract the spotlight to himself. For him, his loved ones, his friends, were important. Emblematic his behavior after the World Cup victory: he disappears to leave the light to others", said Spalletti.
"The nickname - he added - says a lot: his shot and his moral value made more noise than his words".
Video Kilometers of queue for the last tribute to Riva, thousands at the funeral home
"Gigi Riva has deep roots in the past, in the present and which we want to project into the future. I believe that football cannot afford to abandon the spirit that Gigi Riva embodied and which I believe is appreciated by all football fans of any shirt and by all athletes and a good part of the national community", said the Minister of Sport
Andrea Abodi
to the reporters who were waiting for him outside the funeral home set up at the Unipol Domus.
"The solemn funeral was proclaimed precisely because it recognizes not only the sporting aspect but also the moral aspect which objectively is not widespread in this time", he concluded.
Also at the funeral home was the president of CONI,
Giovanni Malagò
.
"Objectively I struggle to find someone who, in the world of sport, was more upright than him from all points of view. Then someone says 'those were different times', but I think that today, but also in a thousand years, he would be That was the case anyway," he said.
"He is a heritage of the world of football but also of Italian sport - he added - he will remain here in Sardinia and I believe that he will become a place of pilgrimage"
For further information Agenzia ANSA Farewell to Gigi Riva, the greatest striker of the national team - Indices - Ansa.it Rombo di Tuono remains the greatest Italian striker with 35 goals and number 11 in Cagliari's 1970 scudetto (ANSA)
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