Notary joins talks to unblock land for Napoli's new training ground

Designers held a briefing in Qualiano with mayor Raffaele De Leonardis and a notary, aiming to clear the mortgage problem that has held up part of the site earmarked for Napoli's new training ground.

by Rosaria CimminoWednesday 7 October, 11:12 CET· 3 hours ago

Centro sportivo a Qualiano, entra in scena un notaio: lunedì il vertice per sciogliere l'ipoteca sui terreni — Grafica Arena Napoli

Napoli's training-ground designers held a technical briefing in Qualiano on Monday 5 October with mayor Raffaele De Leonardis and, for the first time, a notary. That is the new element after months of the same story: bureaucratic problems over a mortgage on some of the plots had blocked everything until now. That obstacle now looks resolvable.

The numbers on the table are the ones Aurelio De Laurentiis gave to the foreign press on 23 September, when the president confirmed that the training ground will be built in Qualiano: 17.5 hectares of land, on which 10 football pitches are planned, along with a further 7,500 square metres for offices and changing rooms for the first team and all the youth sides.

That same day, De Laurentiis also recounted the project's earlier misadventures: a plot identified, a land registry search, an owner who turned out not to be the owner at all.

In Naples, the things you discover along the way become funny but also pathetic.

A mayor's promise that has not aged well

Read again on Wednesday 7 October, the words mayor De Leonardis used to put Qualiano forward as an option back in April 2025 carry extra weight.

The space is there, and these are plots that can be built on right away, with no constraints or bureaucratic problems.

The mortgage that emerged in the months since tells a different story, and it is fair to stay cautious about a saga that has run on for years, littered with the wrong plots of land and promises that have yet to take the shape of a signature.

On Monday, De Laurentiis was also at Castel Volturno, Napoli's training ground, where he spent an hour behind closed doors with head coach Massimiliano Allegri reviewing the start of the season. According to Sky, the president may also have dropped by Qualiano that same day. Nothing is official yet: no signature, no statement. But after a long list of training grounds announced and never begun, having a notary at the table is the first concrete sign that something is actually moving.