Napoli ‘did not need’ to inflate Osimhen transfer | OneFootball

Napoli’s accounts are so healthy that they ‘had no need’ to artificially inflate the cost of Victor Osimhen’s purchase from LOSC, argue President Aurelio De Laurentiis’ lawyers.

The patron was called to testify for over an hour today 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.

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.”

While Napoli were not in financial trouble at the time, Lille were, and effectively used that Osimhen sale to help balance the books.

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.