Napoli pay €850,000 a year for the Maradona as concerts earn €3.6m in June

Napoli pay the city council €850,000 a year in rent to play at the Diego Armando Maradona. The figure came from Pasquale Granata, the council's director general, and he put another one right next to it: "In June, when Napoli did not play, the council took in €3.6 million."

Granata was blunt about what comes next: "When the agreement ends, it will be a whole other world. I don't know if it will go up." He added: "The stadium is a public asset." He pointed out that all maintenance is the council's responsibility. Put that way, it sounds less like an explanation for residents and more like a warning to the other side.

Works until 2028, without losing a seat

On the rebuild, the council has gone its own way. "We would have liked to work with Napoli, but we made an important choice to go it alone. Our project is a re-proposal of the project Napoli presented." UEFA wants the work finished in 2030. The council has set itself 2028, "keeping ourselves on the safe side".

The work will run across two seasons and should not interrupt play. "During the works, Napoli will have the stadium in perfect condition twelve hours before and twelve hours after the match, and not a single seat will be lost."

There was a meeting with the designers on Friday 23 October. According to Granata, the funding is fully in place. Because it is national money, the project will need approval from the public works authority. Surveys have been carried out on the third tier, "a bit more than a first stone". He also offered a comparison: "The project is more complex than the Arechi in Salerno."

The timetable is tight. "By 30 October the final OK will arrive from UEFA for Naples as a host city for EURO 2032," Granata said. A sixth host city and one match fewer at some venues are being discussed, and he believes the Maradona will stage "at least two". Asked whether the lack of an agreement with the club could count against Naples, his answer was short.

"We are not aware of any such privilege."

The other side of the table

De Laurentiis is still working on a stadium of his own: 70,000 seats at San Giovanni a Teduccio, with the possibility of an arena with the Aponte family, which we have already written about. Granata said so openly: "There will then be the possibility that the stadium is not used by Napoli." He then tried to soften it. "As a fan, I hope they play at the Maradona for ever," he said, and of the president: "I think he's a fan, he loves this city."

Our reading is this. The club and the stadium's owner could not agree even on a project that, by the council's own admission, is Napoli's. Now each is going its own way and talking to the other in numbers. The council waves the €3.6m from concerts. The president is thinking about a new stadium, and a few days ago said he would turn the Maradona into a big green park.

Caught in the middle are the supporters. They could see their stadium rebuilt for the Euros while the team packs its bags. Or they could stay in a Maradona that is a building site for two seasons, with rent set to rise. In neither case has anyone explained what the people in the Curva (the hardcore end behind the goal) get out of it.

Meanwhile, the football does not wait. Napoli, tenth on 11 points, play Monza at the U-Power Stadium on Wednesday 28 October at 20:45 CET (19:45 UK, 15:45 ET). On Friday 30 October UEFA will say whether the Maradona is a Euro 2032 venue, and a decision on the San Giovanni a Teduccio site is expected by December. That is when it will become clear whether Napoli and their stadium still have a future together.