Napoli's new training centre to be built in Qualiano

Aurelio De Laurentiis revealed the project on the sidelines of an award ceremony in Rome: ten football pitches and 7,500 square metres of offices and changing rooms for the first team and the youth academy, the result of a months-long search through discarded plots and complicated checks.

by Rosaria CimminoWednesday 23 September, 19:36 CET· 2 hours ago

Aurelio De Laurentiis — Foto: Presidenza della Repubblica · Attribution

Napoli's new training ground will be built in Qualiano, Aurelio De Laurentiis announced on Wednesday 23 September on the sidelines of a press conference in Rome, where the Napoli president received the Sporting Career Award from the Foreign Press Association in Italy.

The project covers 17.5 hectares and will include ten football pitches and a 7,500 square metre building of offices and changing rooms, shared by the first team and the whole of Napoli's youth academy.

"The training ground question has been complicated. We had identified a plot, but in Naples, as you go through the checks, you discover situations that become funny and pathetic at the same time. Now, though, we have found 17.5 hectares in Qualiano: there we will build ten football pitches and 7,500 square metres of offices and changing rooms, for the first team and the whole youth academy," De Laurentiis explained.

Behind the choice of Qualiano is a search that had to start over from scratch. A land registry check revealed that the rental option on the first plot identified by the club had expired, forcing the board to begin again. De Laurentiis put a Florence-based agronomist in charge of the search, who inspected 27 different sites, checking soil quality and any presence of pollution, before arriving at Qualiano.

Priority to the land, not proximity to Naples

The final choice also reveals a criterion: the club prioritised land quality and logistical practicality over geographical closeness to central Naples. It will be a single site that centralises operations currently split across different locations, bringing the first team and the entire youth academy under one roof.

At the same event, De Laurentiis also addressed the stadium question, drawing a clear line between that project and the training ground. For the planned stadium in eastern Naples, he said, "time and a lot of money" are needed — a project that remained in the background, without the figures and details reserved for Qualiano.

The announcement comes at a time when the president, by his own admission, has yet to watch a Napoli match live this season. Napoli sit ninth in the table with 7 points from 5 games, after a summer transfer window that closed with a negative balance of around €47.5m. De Laurentiis talks of pitches, offices and changing rooms still to be built; on the pitch, meanwhile, the team keeps searching for the answers supporters have been waiting weeks for.