Athletico 100 years: Ennio Fornea, the builder

When the backhoes and workers with sledgehammers promoted the “boot-down” from the “Farinhacão” stands, the person commanding the actions with helmet and clipboard in hand was Ennio Fornea Junior.

When forming the Management Committee that took over Athletico in April 1995 and revolutionized the club, until 2002, the central decision-making committee had Mario Celso Petraglia looking at the ‘big picture’ of the administration, Ademir Adur closer to the day to day football and Ennio, with two “n” as the genius Italian composer, responsible for all the civil engineering carried out in the Baixada do Água Verde region.

Among the high-boot-wearing athletes of his generation, there is a great deal of construction work, a very important characteristic in a club that had the unprecedented ability to build, tear down and rebuild its stadium at least five times.

So, when there were just a few months left before the completion of the Arena in 1999 and the works were behind schedule, Ennio worked many nights to ensure its completion. When it was necessary to create a new project and find ways to rebuild according to the “Fifa standard”, he was the one who sat down at the table to plan and negotiate. In those hectic days of 2011, he became a candidate for president of the club.

Son of an Italian who arrived in Brazil in 1949 – the year of the Hurricane – to succeed in the construction sector, Ennio inherited from his father, in addition to his name, his good humor, his job and his passion for Athletico.

After 15 years away, Ennio Fornea Júnior returned to CAP in the broad front formed in the elections at the end of 2023. The red and black fans are grateful, as there is still a lot to be built over the next hundred years.