Tensions between Sampdoria’s organised supporters and the club’s leadership have followed the team into their summer training camp. During the friendly against Cagliari in Temù, members of La Sud displayed a banner reading “Walker-Fredberg pagliacci”, describing Nathan Walker and Jesper Fredberg as clowns, before throwing dozens of red clown noses onto the pitch.
Posters placed around the training ground showed the two officials depicted as clowns alongside the message “Pagliacci indegni, andatevene”, meaning “Unworthy clowns, leave”. Supporters also brought two clown mannequins and wore colourful wigs as part of a carefully prepared protest aimed at the men they consider responsible for the direction of the club.
The demonstration was not an isolated incident. During an earlier friendly against Swiss side Taverne, a group of supporters repeatedly called Fredberg towards the stand and demanded that he confront them directly. The Danish executive remained a central target when the protest continued against Cagliari, this time with Walker included more prominently.
Walker is regarded as the trusted representative of majority investor Joseph Tey and an important link between the ownership, the board and Sampdoria’s executive structure. Fredberg serves as CEO of the football area and oversees the club’s sporting decisions. Messages previously delivered by the two officials, including Walker’s claim that the club had a project and Fredberg’s insistence that the leadership had clear ideas, have since been used against them by supporters who believe those promises have not been matched by convincing actions.
The conflict intensified at the end of May when Sampdoria terminated the contracts of sporting director Andrea Mancini and technical-area coordinator Giovanni Invernizzi. Both were viewed by many supporters as representatives of the club’s identity at a time of significant change behind the scenes. Their departures were followed almost immediately by protest banners outside Sampdoria’s headquarters in Bogliasco directed at Walker and Fredberg.
Andrea Mancini first joined Sampdoria’s management structure in 2023 and later returned to the sporting director role in April 2025. His connection with the club also carries the name of his father Roberto Mancini, Sampdoria’s record appearance holder and leading goalscorer. Between 1982 and 1997, Roberto helped the club win its only Serie A title, four Coppa Italia trophies, the Italian Super Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup, while also reaching the 1992 European Cup final.
Giovanni Invernizzi represented Sampdoria as a player between 1989 and 1997 before continuing his work within the club’s youth and technical structures. He spent more than 25 years with Sampdoria in different roles, making his departure particularly difficult for supporters who saw him as one of the remaining links to the club’s most successful period.
Fredberg described the decision to remove Mancini and Invernizzi as difficult but necessary for what he called a profound renewal of the club. For La Sud, however, those changes became another sign of an increasing distance between Sampdoria’s decision-makers and the identity defended by the terraces. The clown protest in Temù showed that the confrontation has not ended with the start of a new season: Walker and Fredberg remain firmly in the sights of the Blucerchiati support.