Silvio Berlusconi may want to
be captain, but he lacks a team and a game plan, separatist
anti-immigrant Northern League chief Matteo Salvini told ANSA in
an interview Wednesday.
The ex-premier on Tuesday suggested he could be "captain"
with Salvini as striker after the League raked in an
unexpectedly high number of vote in regional elections Sunday.
"I have no political ambitions...but I can be the captain
behind Salvini who is a goal scorer," said Berlusconi, whose
leadership of his center-right Forza Italia (FI) party has come
under fire from his former confidant Raffaele Fitto and other FI
officials after the party's poor showing in Sunday's regional
vote.
"I appreciate Berlusconi's kind words," Salvini said. "But
even if you have Maradona you're not going anywhere unless you
have a team and a game plan".
Also on Wednesday, New Center Right (NCD) leader Angelino
Alfano, who is the current interior minister and whose party is
a splinter from Berlusconi's now-defunct People of Freedom
(PdL), jumped in to the fray by saying any team with Salvini as
striker is destined to fail.
"We want to lead the reformist center-right...but any team
with Salvini as striker is a losing team," Alfano said, pointing
out that Salvini's party wants to leave the euro and "return to
pre-World War II borders".
"Center-right voters don't want a winning League in a
losing center-right," Alfano concluded.
The League is an erstwhile government coalition partner of
Berlusconi's FI in its previous incarnation, which also included
Alfano's NCD.
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