De Laurentiis: “Napoli is my toy, I see no reason to sell it”

“We must heal the problem of the violent, not of the fans who are respectable people. There is a delinquent fringe that must be eliminated and it must be done with a decree law”. Aurelio De Laurentiis he returned to talk about violence in stadiums on the occasion of the “Merger & Acquisition Summit. Mergers and acquisitions in Italy, the big investors, the areas involved and the protagonists of the sector”, organized by Il Sole 24 Ore. “I will meet with interior minister Piantedosi for a discussion: if we don’t solve the problem we can say goodbye to football” said the president of the Naplesfresh from hot days for the protest of the organized groups of the popular sectors of the Maradona stadium.

De Laurentiis: “I see no reason to sell Napoli”

The number one of the Neapolitan club also reiterated that he has no intention of selling the club he bought in 2004: “When they offered me 2.5 billion for Napoli a year ago, I asked myself: do I need it? I should have bought a team in England, but I have Neapolitan origins. Does Naples have any value? It’s a toy of the De Laurentis family, I see no reason to sell it until we get tired of it. Bari? Bari, on the other hand, must be sold until we change the law – it has concluded – If they changed it like in Europe I’d like to keep it, as a southern man”.

De Laurentiis: “Football funds don’t understand anything”

Various topics were addressed in the Sole 24 Ore event. On funds, an issue that has always seen him in opposition, De Laurentiis said: “Either football is understood as a business, and unfortunately in Italy it is only halfway, or you go nowhere. The funds are something very important, but funds usually have to invest in a sector to give profitability to their investors. Somehow they take profitability away from the sector itself, because they don’t do it for free. Why have I always been against it? First, because they don’t understand anything about football , if you’re not into it, you can call the biggest managers and do the media company but they don’t necessarily guarantee you the result. What annoys me in Lega Serie A? That the properties aren’t present. We’re scarce on governance in the Lega because we lack people prepared to do it. But the people prepared to do it you have to choose after you have made a program. The big problem that nobody ever talks about is piracy. Finally now it would seem that this new law against piracy will come out in May. You can put all the best managers, but the funds run away when they see that there is no tripe for cats”.

“New stadiums? We are the country of the mafias”

As far as stadiums are concerned, however, for De Laurentiis “we are light years behind England and other countries. But the problem with stadiums, I am sorry to say, is that we are in some ways the most beautiful country in the world and then we are the most violent with the mafia, ‘Ndrangheta and Camorra. This doesn’t help. When we say we have to redo the stadiums, we have to redo them for whom? If we have to redo them to have them destroyed, it’s useless if we don’t put a stop to it. This is the country of the Court of Auditors and the superintendencies, but football today should have the go-ahead, the Municipalities that haven’t put money into stadiums for years should sell it for one euro, also giving the authorizations”.