Each year the Reventino Rotary Club organizes the prestigious Premio Arte e Professioni – Arts and Professions Award – named after “Filippo Larussa”. A tradition that has been renewed since 1996 and which for 2019 has indicated a prominent personality linked to Calabria and the world of football. This is Corrado Ferlaino, former president of the Napoli football team, engineer and building contractor, whose father born in Calabria in Conflenti.
The Award aims to identify annually a personality born or active in the territory of the Rotary Club of Reventino. A personality that has distinguished itself by placing cultural and social values of a historical, humanistic, literary, but also scientific, technical or artistic nature at the service of the community and its work. Reaching results that fill the heart with pride and can be a stimulus for the community and in particular for young people. This year the plaque will be awarded to the engineer Corrado Ferlaino, a man of considerable thickness who has dedicated a large part of his life to work and sport.
A virtual bridge for the award ceremony
The Prize, sponsored by the Italiani.it Foundation, will be delivered on Friday June 26, at 5pm, with a virtual bridge that will connect the council chamber in Conflenti to the Park Hotel Miglio d’Oro in Ercolano. All through the Zoom internet platform that will digitally connect all participants.
The award ceremony will open with a moment of honor to the flags and greetings from the presidents of the Rotary Club of Reventino and Ercolano Centenario, Antonio Giacobbe and Salvatore Cilento respectively. There will therefore be an intervention by the Mayor of Conflenti Serafino Paola. The word will pass to Paola Stranges, president of the Italiani.it Foundation, who for years has been working with pride on the ambitious project of creating, piece by piece, the network of Italians in the world. A network of people belonging to Italy by birth, by origin or by love, to tell and promote the Bel Paese. The panel “When football makes history” will open soon after, moderated by the journalist Sarah Incamicia. We will then move on to the interventions. The first to speak will be the entrepreneur and former president of Calcio Napoli Corrado Ferlaino. The panel will be enriched with the participation of the former footballer Massimo Palanca and the sports journalist Sante Roperto. Finally, we will move on to the award ceremony of the “Filippo Larussa” Arts and Professions Prize to Corrado Ferlaino. The conclusions will be given to Raffaele Di Leo, assistant to the district 2100 governor of Rotary.
Ferlaino, a life between business and football
Who is Corrado Ferlaino and what binds him to Calabria? His father Modesto was from Conflenti, a delightful town in the Reventino area. He is th grandson of magistrate Francesco Ferlaino, killed by the ‘ndrangheta in 1975.
Corrado brings with him a strong bond with this land even though he was born in Naples on May 18, 1931 to a Milanese mother. Graduated in Bari in Civil Engineering, he follows in the footsteps of his father (also an engineer) in the construction company, tradition of the Ferlaino family in Conflenti. The young Corrado built the first residences in Vomero and Arenella Alta and from there to the Central Business District of Naples, and then in many residential areas of Italy. He is a man of many facets and abilities and soon held positions in the administrations of important Italian public and private companies. Today all its activities are run by five children. But it is that famous January 18, 1969 that Corrado Ferlaino imposes himself on the news by ending up on the front pages of all newspapers. It is the day on which he is elected president of Napoli, succeeding the Lauro family for years at the top of the football club. An assignment that Ferlaino maintained until the 2000s.
From football to the Hale of Fame Award
With him, Napoli will win 2 championships in the Maradona era (in 1987 and 1990), but not only, also the Italian Cup, the UEFA Cup and the Italian Super Cup.
He also holds the position of Federal Councilor of the FGCI, from which he receives the coveted Hall of Fame Award, and then Vice President of the Technical Center of Coverciano. But in addition to football he is passionate about motoring: in 1963 he won the Granturismo Drivers Championship with Ferrari. In 2019 in Naples he won the Scugnizzo Prize for Sport. A life spent between business, football, passion for sports cars and works of art. Its roots are in Conflenti, where his father was born. A small town in Calabria located at the foot of Mount Reventino, located 540 m above sea level and surrounded by lush woods. A village with a wonderful history and an intense cultural life that animates the heart of the mountain range that legend wants inhabited by fairies.
Images from Wikipedia and Corrado Ferlaino Facebook page
