Giorgia Meloni wanted Silvia Salis to become president of CONI Now they are rivals
Silvia Salis. The most searched name in Italy right now. Mayor of Genoa, 40 years old, a two-time Olympic athlete (Beijing 2008 and London 2012) in the hammer throw, Salis is described as the main political rival of current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ahead of the 2027 general elections. To date, she has not officially announced her candidacy; in fact, she has confirmed she will not take part in the Democratic Party primaries. At the same time, however, she has not ruled out the possibility of leading the center-left coalition and has instead hinted at being open to the idea.
The CONI case and the clash between sport and government power
The first time the paths of Giorgia Meloni and Silvia Salis crossed was between 2023 and 2024, when Salis served as deputy vice-president of the CONI. Those were weeks of intense debate over whether then-president of CONI Giovanni Malagò should be granted a fourth term, allowing him to remain in office for the 2026 Milan–Cortina Winter Olympic Games.
As expected, Malagò pushed strongly in that direction, while Meloni was more inclined to deny any extension, favoring a path of change. Within this context, Salis began to emerge as a potential strong candidate for the CONI presidency—a scenario that, according to several accounts, was also viewed favorably by Meloni herself, who was attracted to the idea of a woman leading Italy’s Olympic movement, anticipating what would later happen in the International Olympic Committee in 2025 with the election of Kirsty Coventry. For the same reason, another name that surfaced at the time was Diana Bianchedi.
Why Silvia Salis is becoming a key political name in Italy
Although Salis never formally confirmed her candidacy in this case either, some reports at the time described her as highly active behind the scenes, working to secure the key support needed to win the elections scheduled for 2025. However, her candidacy never materialized. The main reason lies in Malagò’s persistence, as he never facilitated the rise of a successor, being fully focused on securing yet another term as CONI president in the run-up to Milan–Cortina.
When this scenario did not materialize and elections were called to choose a new CONI president, Malagò consulted the federation presidents and realized they would vote for one of their own, not an external candidate—effectively shutting Bianchedi and Salis out of the race. By that point, however, Salis had already stepped aside. Faced with the stalemate between Malagò and the government, she ultimately withdrew and, in February 2025, officially announced her candidacy for mayor of Genoa—a first step in a political career that could, in the future, possibly soon, lead her to national government.
The Olympics in Genoa?
However, sport has not completely disappeared from Salis’s professional life. In fact, her current goal is to bring the Olympic Games to Genoa by leveraging the model of the decentralised Olympics. In this scenario, the cities supporting Genoa would be Milan and Turin. As stated in an official communiqué: “The regions of Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria, together with the cities of Turin, Milan and Genoa, announce the launch of a joint process aimed at assessing the possibility of submitting a unified bid from Northwest Italy to host a future edition of the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, with an initial timeframe identified as 2036 or, alternatively, 2040.” We are still at a preliminary stage and there is not even the first draft of a bid, but the success of Milano Cortina 2026 has been so significant that Italy, through three of its most important cities, now hopes to host the Summer Games for the first time since 1960.
