Rizzetta's group values Napoli at €1.3bn as De Laurentiis holds out for €2bn

The American businessman and the Napoli president met for less than an hour at the hotel de Bonart. No formal offer was made, but the €700m gap between the two figures is not the real problem. The real problem is the stadium.

by Rosaria CimminoFriday 23 October, 00:03 CET· 9 hours ago

De Laurentiis e Rizzetta, un'ora al de Bonart: la cordata vale il Napoli 1,3 miliardi, il presidente non scende sotto i 2 — Grafica Arena Napoli

Matt Rizzetta is still interested in Napoli. He met Aurelio De Laurentiis at the hotel de Bonart on corso Vittorio Emanuele, and the meeting lasted less than an hour. It came straight after Rizzetta visited the Pausillipon hospital for a charity event.

The timing was awkward. Only hours earlier, the president had said the club was not for sale. He also said he had turned down €3.5bn, and that if he ever did sell, it would be "to a Neapolitan, not an American".

Rizzetta is acting as an advisor to a group of investors who want to get into football. Above all, they want to invest in a growing brand, and Naples will host the America's Cup next summer. For this group, sporting infrastructure comes first.

There is no formal offer yet. The two sides discussed what the club is worth, and their numbers are far apart. The consortium values Napoli at around €1.3bn. De Laurentiis will not consider anything below €2bn.

The stadium is what this is really about

The president's package includes the land for his own stadium at San Giovanni a Teduccio. That means the roughly 25 hectares of a former refinery, which the club is negotiating over with Q8 Italia. A decision is expected by December.

Rizzetta's group is looking elsewhere. It loves the Maradona. The idea would be to run the stadium and possibly invest in renovating it, as long as the group takes control of Napoli. Nothing else interests Rizzetta, including a minority stake.

That is the real sticking point, and it runs deeper than the €700m between the two valuations. De Laurentiis is selling a project that includes a new stadium. The consortium wants to buy a team and the stadium that already exists. These are two different ideas of the future. Supporters have heard talk of a new stadium for years without seeing a building site, so they are entitled to ask which idea is more realistic.

There is another question too. If €3.5bn was turned down, what does the €2bn figure mean? For now it is the price below which the president will not talk, not the price at which he would sell.

Meanwhile, the football

We are neither for the president nor against him. But this week the talk has been about ownership more than the team, and the moment does not allow for it. Napoli are ninth with 10 points after 7 games, nine points behind the leaders Inter.

Roma, third on 17 points, come to the Maradona on Saturday 24 October at 18:00 CET (17:00 UK, 12:00 ET). It is the second of the two tests the club has tied to Massimiliano Allegri's future.

What Napoli are worth, the figure discussed at the de Bonart, also depends on what happens on the pitch. And on Saturday, there is a game to play.