Italian Club Asks For Obama's Help To Acquire Kobe
CBS Sports
Royce Young
You have to hand it to Claudio Sabatini, the owner of Italian club Virtus Bologna. He's persistent.
After supposedly narrowing down a deal with Kobe Bryant to one game for $2 million, Sabatini evidently agreed to a video conference with Kobe's representatives to hammer out details or maybe not details at all, according to La Gazzetta de Sporto. The conference was at midnight.
But Kobe's people never showed up. Sabatini evidently sat waiting for three more hours until 3 a.m., before finally logging off and saying, "I'm not sure how to interpret this." I don't think any interpretation should be needed, Claudio. You got stood up.
Not to be discouraged though, Sabatini did the next, most logical thing. He wrote a letter to Barack Obama. And he invoked a little Martin Luther King Jr. to add a little sizzle. Seriously.
We would have liked to keep the message confidential and private. We sent it to the President of the United States of America Barack Obama last night, but in order to avoid misunderstandings, we publish the content of the above mentioned letter.
Dear Mr. President,
We have a dream: to see Kobe Bryant playing for our Team Virtus Pallacanestro Bologna, the Italian town well known in the world as basket City.
According to your wishes we hope that the Nba lockout will shortly stop but in the meanwhile let us have the chance to see at least for one game the great Kobe Bryant playing with our black and white jersey and be part of our history.
Claudio Sabatini
If that doesn't get Kobe to Italy, then I'm not sure anything will.
