President Aurelio De Laurentiis’ lawyers have claimed that Napoli’s accounts are so healthy that they ‘had no need’ to artificially inflate the cost of purchasing Super Eagles star striker Victor Osimhen from French Ligue One club Lille.
De Laurentiis was invited to testify for over an hour on Wednesday to the public prosecutor in Rome, who is investigating the 2020 transfer from Lille.
It was officially completed for €76,356,819 including circa €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.
Liguori famously complained in 2021 that these youth players had been pushed into accepting the transfer.
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De Laurentiis was accompanied by lawyers Fabio Fulgeri and Lorenzo Contrada, who then spoke to reporters.
“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,” 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.”
