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Luciano Gaucci[]

Luciano Gaucci (born December 28, 1939 in Rome, Italy) is a jowly nutcase who was once in charge of Perugia. He bought a dictator's son, collected foreign players like stamps, nearly signed a woman and tried to create a team of horses.

During his reign over Italian minnows Perugia, Gaucci made waves in 2003 by signing Saadi al-Gaddafi – the son of popular Libyan despot Muammar al-Gaddafi.

"He creates incredible enthusiasm within the team,” Gaucci declared. "Where is it written that the son of a head of state must not be recruited?”

While the fleshy president was correct that his swoop was perfectly legal, it is also not written anywhere that you can’t sign talentless North African socialites, but people don’t tend to do it.

Saadi’s signature proved to be less than a triumph as he looked out of his depth in training and played just one game before failing a drugs test by some distance. The results showed that Gadaffi Jnr was “mostly made up of illegal substances.”

An increasingly unstable Gaucci then became convinced that he had to sign a woman.

"Within six months we'll have a woman playing in Perugia's red strip," he told chuckling journalists. "Obviously we couldn't pick a small woman who would get knocked over the first time she was touched! In fact the woman I've been looking for had to be tall with a masculine sort of build.”

Delpiero-horse

Gaucci's Perugia side weren't at the races against Juventus

Strangely, Gaucci didn't find his ideal woman, but he did nearly sign Patrik Berger after watching him from the stands at Anfield. Disappointed to discover that the Czech enigma was in fact a man, Gaucci made the logical decision that horses were the answer to Perugia’s troubles.

“Good footballers are like good horses but harder to find,” Gaucci muttered. “I wish I could play a team of horses.”

Gaucci did indeed play a team of horses against Juventus in the Coppa Italia, but the going was soft and they were beaten 3-1 after being reduced to nine horses for some heavy challenges.

Another of Gaucci’s projects was signing players from obscure countries.

Keen to own a player from every nation on earth, Gaucci compiled a squad of nearly 500 men, many of whom weren’t footballers at all. Amongst those in his collection was South Korean striker Ahn Jung-Hwan.

However, Ahn angered Gaucci by knocking Italy out of the 2002 World Cup and the insane chief sacked him, claiming he had “ruined Italian football.”

Like all other Italian football chairmen, Gaucci eventually went to prison for being a terrible financial cheat.

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