Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis will face trial after an Italian court said he and other officials falsified the figures in the transfer of Victor Osimhen from Lille five years ago.
De Laurentiis and other top Napoli officials will begin trial on September 2, 2026.
Osimhen’s transfer involved player exchanges and these were inflated.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, Napoli used fictitious capital gains and accounting manipulations to falsify the club’s financial statements, a version firmly rejected by De Laurentiis, who, according to La Gazzetta, never attended the hearings.
The Italian daily newspaper reported comments from the three lawyers of the Napoli owner: “We are absolutely stunned by the judge’s decision (…) The prosecution and the prosecutors emphasized in their (previous) arguments that Naples has not benefited from any advantage in this case.”
For their part, Napoli issued a similarly scathing statement.
“We express our shock and dismay at the indictment issued by the investigating judge in Rome,” it read.
“All the technical investigations, carried out with the utmost rigor, have unequivocally demonstrated the regularity of the club’s actions, both with regard to the accounting of transactions and player transfers.
“The club approaches the legal proceedings with serenity and confidence. The truth will undoubtedly be established.”
