The president of Napoli on Fazio’s broadcast on Rai 3: “I will always thank him, but when a coach tells you certain things, that a cycle of his life has ended, you can’t help but accept this desire”
The end of the relationship between Napoli and Luciano Spalletti was made official directly by Aurelio De Laurentiis. The president recounted the reasons and background of the separation from the coach who led the team to its third championship. “Spalletti is a free man. After so many years of cinema, when someone comes to you and says ‘Basically I’ve done my best and a cycle has ended. I would like a sabbatical year even if I know I still have one on my contract’, I can only thank him and it’s only right that he does what he wants, I wish him the best” he explained in the interview granted to Fabio Fazio, a guest at Che Tempo Che Fa. De Laurentiis recalled the press conference in which he spoke, before the start of the season, about the possibility of winning the Scudetto. “Since we had sent away so many important players, because for me they had closed the cycle, the journalists who are provocative asked me what I was going to do. And I replied that perhaps I would have won the Scudetto. Even Spalletti looked at me in dismay, he had no idea who we might have bought. He was very good at coaching them. The technicians are divided between those who want to make the market and those who coach, he is one who coaches. We put excellent material at his disposal that he knew how to ride. There is a wonderful relationship with the players”.
Maradona and the party
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“Maradona is unique, unrepeatable – continued the Napoli president – he continues to play with us. Dedicating the stadium to him was a duty. When I let it become my property, because the Municipality has to give it to us for 99 years, otherwise I’m going to build it in Caserta, we’ll spend hundreds of millions in it where we’ll build an extraordinary museum where it will be possible to play with Diego. The stadium should be something that pulsates seven days a week, not just when the game is played. You also need to be able to marry the people inside it. It’s an extraordinary place.” The Scudetto has contributed to spreading the club’s brand. “It was a very heartfelt fact. In this period many Americans are visiting the city and want to come and watch the matches at the stadium because they see Naples all colored in blue. Nielsen has certified that there are more than 83 million Azzurri fans, now they will have become 120. It was also a success in terms of marketing. June 4th will be the award ceremony. Stefano De Martino will be there to conduct, it will be broadcast on Rai 2 from 9 pm and we will go on until midnight with many singers and interventions “.
The world of football
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De Laurentiis recalled his entry into football when he took over Napoli in 2004. “I knew nothing about this sport. However, cinema is so complex that it suggests that football cannot be so complex. As a child I played basketball, my family is Neapolitan and therefore our football team was Napoli. I’ve always thought that they are two fundamental sources of entertainment and that this adventure could work. I didn’t think twice. The first time I tried to sign Napoli, Ferlaino sued me. Then when I discovered that the club had gone bankrupt, I bought that little piece of paper with 32 million. My family said it wasn’t for me. I am a Gemini and whoever is of this sign must always project themselves into the future”. More often than not, the president lashed out against the institutional mechanisms of football, but he wanted to clarify his position on the matter: “I don’t want to revolutionize, I want to recover the very young who are going stupid with cell phones and platforms. They don’t feel the urge to follow him live. I would like to speak to the Minister of Education to teach children how to be a coach. The Spalletti or the Mourinho of the situation could record lessons, so maybe that very important part of the public can be recovered. We still have a 15 minute break, it doesn’t have to be. We pay 27 players, we have enough to do everything.” Always on the same vein, he provided another food for thought. “You have to be competitive by keeping your accounts in order, the secret is doing business and not taking. If you are an entrepreneur, you invest and collect. If you don’t invest, debt piles up. The football institutions should make a clean slate and restart with new rules; current ones are not accurate. There are championships that are not balanced and it is absolutely wrong. Karts do not compete in Formula 1. The championships should be formed by types of cities. We can’t play a city with 5 million inhabitants with one that has 30,000. The match would be seen by few people and the sponsors do not participate, this problem has not been investigated and addressed”.
Meeting with the Pope
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De Laurentiis met Pope Francis on Friday. “I told him that I brought him a small gift, a small foot of Maradona, which will serve to give away all the injustices in the world”. Speaking of the world, the contracts that Napoli makes players and employees sign are valid in the entire universe. The president explained the reasons for this choice. “We De Laurentiis have always had a great culture of music. The company today will have more than 1,500 soundtracks, in the contracts we made it was written ‘in the universe’. If an astronaut is flying through the air on Mars, NASA sends him pictures of a game or a movie. There could be many more people tomorrow,” he concluded.
May 28, 2023 (change May 28, 2023 | 23:43)
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