Semi-Pro
Our Path to pro program
Sporting Arizona Football Club (SAFC) is an American soccer club based in Arizona. Founded in 1989, SAFC is Arizona’s professional development club. The foundation of SAFC’s development model is to showcase deserving local and international talent through its teams – Sporting Arizona FC and SAFC Arizona Sahuaros. Players who join SAFC teams are expected to develop into exceptional athletes and servant-leaders. We want our players to be true examples of rectitude and pride for their families, their communities, and the sporting world.
Club Officials
Gennaro Buonocore
President
Gennaro Buonocore is Sporting Arizona’s Director of Business Development.
Gennaro is a thirty year veteran of the investment banking sector. He has held senior positions at Liberty Eurobrokers, Smith Barney Shearson, Yamaichi International (Europe), Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and at IBJ International (Mizuho Bank) in the United Kingdom. He currently chairs the board of directors of Maitland Primrose Group, a US-based investment company.
Gennaro’s investment companies have held participations in the international sports industry such as SSC Napoli (an Italian professional football club), Premier Management Holdings (a publicly listed FIFA professional players’ agency), and in the entertainment sector with companies such as Viastar Media Holdings Corporation, St. James Films, Mike The Pike Productions and Moving Pictures Film and Television.
Gennaro is an alumnus of the 468 years-old Jesuit’s Istituto Massimiliano Massimo in Rome, of Regent’s University London’s European Business School, of Webster University’s George Herbert Walker Graduate School of Business and Technology and of the Universita’ di Roma III
Heber Valenzuela
State 48 FC Managing Director
Claudio scalzotto
SAFC Representative in Italy
Claudio has over 40 years of experience in the field of antiquities in Italy and abroad. Parallel to this, he played in 15 Italian Football Federation official leagues, starting from the youth network of AS Roma to the Promotion Category, totaling over 600 caps and interrupting his career due to a serious injury.
Over the years, he had continued to play in charity games thus never leaving the football field.
For the past 10 years, Claudio has operated as an executive ‘accompagnatore’ and scout for various top-level Roman amateur clubs. He is a level I graduate of the Feyenoord Rotterdam Coaching Academy and he is currently attending the Modena FC training course, where he is the liaison officer for the Sporting Arizona FC (SAFC) relationship. His responsibilities lay in managing SAFC relationships with Italian clubs, in finding Italian players who are wanting to play in the USA or South America and in placing SAFC’s players
