Ernesto Brivio is one of the most picturesque presidents Lazio have ever had.
Born in Milan in 1915, in his youth he moved to Rome and in 1945 he joined the Black Brigades organized by the Fascist party in the south of Italy. He was the one who with four hand grenades and a machine gun attacked the Motta factory. Arrested and sentenced to years in jail, in 1947 he emigrated to South America and became the right-hand man of the Cuban dictator Fugenzio Batista. He came back to Italy after the Fidel Castro revolution. Back at home he became a movie producer, owned horses, was a property developer and financed the newspaper Telesera. He was famous for going around the nightlife of Rome with a baby lion.
In 1962 the Lazio commissioner, Massimo Giovannini, declared that the club’s debt was of 500 million lire despite the fact that a few days earlier it had been certified that it was double that amount. Giovannini had been chosen to oversee the club by the Lega Serie A, the governing body that runs the major professional football competitions in Italy. He was confirmed for another three months on June 14, but the Lega said no. On September 27, Brivio was elected president much to everyone's surprise. In the meantime, he had become a member of the Italian Social Movement, a neo-fascist party, and had been elected locally for the Rome city council. It appeared that he had a lot of money, something much needed by the club, but nobody knew how much. He promised he would pay all the club’s debts thanks to his winnings at the casino.
The first thing Brivio did was to sack Carlo Facchini and choose Juan Carlos Lorenzo as head coach. In the winter transfer window, he sold Dimitri Pinti and Paolo Carosi and signed Gianfranco Garbuglia and Orlando Rozzoni.
Lazio were doing well but Brivio was nowhere to be seen, apparently abroad. When he came back he promised the scudetto and if Lazio had had a comfortable advantage he would have played tennis champion Nicola Pietrangeli and actor Maurizio Arena in the final games of the season. In February he was shot and injured a finger. It was not clear what actually happened, whether it was self-inflicted or not. This incident created a rift on the club board of directors and Leonardo Siliato, Angelo Miceli and Giovannini quit during the board meeting of February 12. “I will pay all I have to or I will leave”, he said and the three continued. He left on February 21. Lazio then managed to find a group, Gian Chiaron Casoni, Dino Canestri and Fernando De Sando, who managed to partially mitigate the dire financial situation and hand the presidency to Angelo Miceli.
Not a lot is known about what happened to Brivio after. He was arrested in Lebanon in June 1963 but was able to avoid being sent back to Italy where he had been sentenced to jail for fraudulent bankruptcy. He was later acquitted on appeal.
He died in Como, on December 11, 1976.
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