Napoli and BPER launch Centenary card for fans

Napoli have announced a new initiative with BPER tied to the club's Centenary: a card designed for supporters, presented through the words of the people who built it on each side of the partnership.

"The Centenary represents a unique moment in the club's history, and we want it to live on through products that can build an ever stronger relationship with our supporters."

Maurice Lisi, Head of BPER's Digital Business, Marketing and Payments division, struck the same note: "This card is the concrete expression of a solid and continuously evolving partnership."

The club's Centenary, marking its foundation on 25 August 1926, is producing several parallel initiatives these weeks. On Thursday 1 October, Napoli launched 'Tanos' on their own channels, a project on the bond between the Neapolitan people and Argentina, while the Youth Sector started football courses at Secondigliano prison, a jail in Naples.

The launch arrives in a week when fans' minds are on something else entirely. Napoli are ninth with 7 points from 5 games, their worst start to a league season in 10 years according to Opta, and banners against Aurelio De Laurentiis have appeared on walls around the city in recent days, the latest one also aimed at his children Edoardo and Valentina. A commercial initiative for the Centenary does not change what is happening on the pitch, and is unlikely to shift the mood of a fanbase waiting for answers from the team, not from products on sale.

The next real test remains a sporting one: on Saturday 10 October the Maradona hosts Frosinone, the game in which Allegri will try to turn around a start that has so far fallen short of expectations.