Rome, Italy, June 1, 2020 – Alessandro Fei may well have announced his retirement from life as a professional volleyball player, but the three-time Olympic medal winner will remain active in the sport as team manager of his last club Gas Sales Piacenza.
The Italian used a video conference to make his decision public and end a career that lasted over 25 years, and which featured an Olympic silver medal at Athens 2004, and two bronze from Sydney 2000 and London 2012. He was also in the Italy squad that lost to Russia in the Beijing 2008 bronze medal match.
“You may wonder why I took this decision right now,” Fei said. “I have the opportunity to remain associated with volleyball as team manager of Gas Sales Volley and I feel at home with this club and in this city.
“Therefore, I accepted their offer without any hesitation. I will definitely miss the action on court, but I will remain close to the sport as a manager and will be ready to support the players that will join the group for the coming season. As far as my competitive career is concerned, I have absolutely no regrets.”
Along with his Olympic medals the 41-year-old helped Italy to gold at the Tokyo 1998 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship, and the 2003 and 2005 European Championships.
During his club career the player who hails from Saronno, a town that lies between Italy’s northern lakes and Milan, completed a clean sweep of CEV European Champions League, CEV Cup and Challenge Cup, and won over 350 caps for the Azzurri.
He played 721 matches in Italy’s SuperLega for Padova, Macerata, Treviso, Civitanova and Latina, before joining Piacenza, and set an all-time scoring record of 9,719 points.
“I am honoured and to have him as part of our team, Piacenza’s director general Hristo Zlatanov said. “I have known him as an opponent, and we shared the Olympics as players.
“I am really happy that he wants to help with our project and with him as team manager we will be able to aim even higher than before.”
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