De Laurentiis meets the Aponte family in Geneva over €1bn stadium plan

Aurelio De Laurentiis spent two and a half hours at MSC's headquarters in Geneva on the morning of Tuesday 27 October, sitting across from Gianluigi Aponte and his son Diego. One subject came out of the meeting: a new stadium for Napoli.

The plan works in stages. First, Q8 has to finish cleaning up the former Kuwait Petroleum site at San Giovanni a Teduccio. Napoli would then buy the land, and MSC would fund the construction, in part or in full. Early estimates put the cost at between €800m and €1bn.

The project is the 70,000-seat design. Most of the site has already been cleaned up, at a cost of almost €100m. The talks cover about 25 hectares, and the asking price is more than €20m. A decision on the land is expected by December.

The stadium, and only the stadium

The detail that matters most is that nothing but the stadium was discussed, and that is no accident. In recent days the name of Diego Aponte, 49, the president of MSC, has come up as a possible owner after De Laurentiis.

That talk started straight after the president said: "For the moment I have not decided to sell." He added that "if I had to sell, I would sell to a Neapolitan rather than an American". Meanwhile, Matt Rizzetta's group has offered €1.3bn, and De Laurentiis will not go below €2bn. Against that background, two and a half hours between Napoli's owner and the family that runs MSC could never pass as a simple technical meeting about building work.

We take what has come out at face value: the stadium was on the table. But we will ask the question anyway, because every fan in every bar is asking it. If MSC paid for all or nearly all of an investment close to €1bn, would it do so as a sponsor putting its name on the ground, or as someone getting ready to buy into the club?

Those are two very different things, and Napoli supporters have a right to know which one they are dealing with.

"In parte o totalmente" — in part or in full — is not a detail. It decides who runs that stadium for decades to come.

The old problem

Then there is the problem that never goes away. Over the years Naples has seen more stadium plans than building sites. Napoli currently play at the Diego Armando Maradona under an agreement with the city council, paying €850,000 a year. A stadium of its own would change the club's finances for good, and nobody disputes that.

The trouble is that this time the chain is long: a clean-up still to finish, land still to buy, funding still to agree. If one link breaks, we are back to looking at artist's impressions.

Meanwhile, on the pitch

The football has nothing to do with this story, but it weighs on the mood of the fanbase. Napoli are tenth with 11 points after eight games. Allegri is suspended, so Landucci will be on the bench at Monza on Wednesday 28 October, kick-off 20:45 CET (19:45 UK, 15:45 ET).

While the president talks about a €1bn stadium in Geneva, supporters are watching the team they have now. The two things can move forward together, but the team cannot wait for the stadium.

The next real deadline is the decision on the land, due by December. That is when we will find out whether the Geneva meeting got the project moving or was only ever a meeting.