Napoli Lawyers: De Laurentiis ‘did not need’ to inflate Osimhen transfer fee

Napoli lawyers say  the club’s accounts are so healthy that they ‘had no need’ to artificially inflate the cost of Victor Osimhen’s transfer from Ligue 1 side, Lille in September 2020.

Napoli President, Aurelio De Laurentiis  testified for over an hour on Wednesday to the public prosecutor in Rome, who is investigating the 2020 transfer from Lille.

The transfer was officially completed for €76,356,819 including €20m for four players, specifically Ciro Palmieri, Orestis Karnezis, Luigi Liguori and Claudio Manzi.

Of those four, only Karnezis ever played for Lille and the others were generally loaned out to low level clubs until their contracts were abruptly terminated.

‘De Laurentiis was clear with the prosecutor with regards to the accusation of false accounting relative to the Osimhen transfer, because that did not bring any advantage to Napoli,’ one of the lawyers, Fulgeri told news agency ANSA.

‘This aspect was already evaluated and shelved by the prosecutor in Naples and the sporting authorities.

‘The investigation showed that the club’s accounts are so healthy that there was no need to inflate a transfer to register for Italian or European competitions.’

According to Football Italia, ‘Napoli are one of the few Italian clubs who run at a profit, also because De Laurentiis took over the club in the third division after their bankruptcy in 2004.’