De Laurentiis defends window: '€60m on Højlund and Alisson buy-outs'

The president told journalist Paolo Esposito that Napoli had no money left for further signings after covering the buy-out clauses, with the summer window closing on a net spend of about €47.5m.

by Rosaria CimminoSunday 27 September, 11:23 CET· 4 hours ago

Aurelio De Laurentiis — Foto: Presidenza della Repubblica · Attribution

Aurelio De Laurentiis has hit back at supporters critical of Napoli's summer transfer business, putting a precise figure on the club's spending. The account comes from Paolo Esposito, a journalist and host of Area di Rigore on TVA who has known the president for twenty-two years.

I did do the transfer window — we invested about sixty million to buy out Højlund and Alisson.

De Laurentiis added that Napoli had no money left for further signings because, in his words, the club does not run up debts and does not have a holding company behind it. The window closed on 1 September with a net spend of about €47.5m. Napoli sold fringe players first — Miguel Gutiérrez went for €26m, a deal driven more by cash needs than football reasons — while the buy-outs for Højlund and Alisson were joined by Lucca's arrival from Udinese for €35m and Badiashile's move from Chelsea.

The numbers do not fully answer the wider complaint. Napoli sit ninth after five league games, on 7 points, with Beukema still without a single minute and Badiashile on just ten. Tidy accounts do not explain why, away at Fiorentina, the alternatives the table demands were still missing from the pitch.