Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has once again insisted on his macho promise of a bus full of prostitutes to motivate the players of his soccer team, AC Monza, claiming this time that he has received «a hundred phone calls» asking him to make good on his promise.
«I have received a hundred phone calls, asking me to fulfill my commitment,» Berlusconi said after his team’s 2-0 win over Juventus this weekend, reports Italian daily ‘La Repubblica’.
In mid-December last year, on the occasion of the team’s Christmas dinner, Berlusconi sparked a new controversy when he promised his players that if they beat any of the Italian giants, including Juventus, he would bring «a bus full of prostitutes to the dressing room».
Immediately, Berlusconi’s macho outrage was publicly criticized by the opposition, calling the words «unworthy», «vulgar», «misogynist», as well as «a disgrace for all men and women in Italy».
In response to the criticism, Berlusconi said he was surprised by the commotion caused by «a simple locker room joke» and regretted that his opponents used his «total lack of humor» to attack him «in such a gratuitous manner».
«Frankly, I did not think, and no one could have imagined, that a simple, playful, and clearly paradoxical ‘locker room’ joke towards my Monza players could elicit such malevolent comments as trivial and unrealistic. I pity these critics,» he then reacted on Twitter.
Berlusconi, 86, has been involved throughout his long political career in all sorts of sexist scandals, some of which have led to court cases, such as the parties he organized at his Milan mansion, in which underage girls are suspected to have participated.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
