Bankruptcy to Champions: How Aurelio De Laurentiis Revived Napoli

Napoli’s exploits in the 2022–23 season, where they dominated the league to win their first league title in 33 years, are still fresh in everyone’s mind. After years of nearly competing for the league, this came as a cathartic relief to many who love a good comeback tale in football, for what a comeback it was from the near-bankrupt state that the club found itself in just 20 years ago. The shrewd business decision-making of the owner of Napoli, Aurelio De Laurentiis, has played a key role in this rejuvenation of one of the classic Italian footballing giants.

Bankruptcy at Napoli

After Diego Maradona departed from the club in 1991, Napoli found itself in a gradual decline over the following decade. The club finished fourth in the next season and had accumulated a debt of 50 billion lire by 1994, even though the sale of stars such as Gianfranco Zola, Fabio Cannavaro, and Ciro Ferrara did not improve. Subsequently, in 1998, they were relegated from Serie A, and again in 2000, immediately after winning promotion. In 2004, after it went through the hands of two more owners who could not resolve the club’s financial issues, Napoli was finally declared bankrupt.

Aurelio de Laurentiis’s rescue of Napoli

It was to save the footballing culture in the city that the famous Italian producer decided to step in by purchasing the sporting rights of the club right before the 2004–05 season. Thus, Napoli was re-founded by Aurelio De Laurentiis as Napoli Soccer in the third tier of Italian football. Despite being unable to secure promotion the following season, the boost in attendance in the matches and rejuvenation of the love for the club in the city emboldened Laurentiis’s conviction, who, alongside the director Pierpaolo Marino, went on to rebuild the squad and the club. Napoli secured back-to-back promotions to Serie A over the next two seasons and was renamed back to Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli, signifying a return to the original roots of the club. In 2007, Napoli also signed the future Slovakian superstar Marek Hamsik, and the fortunes of the clubs turned a tide, with the club even securing qualification for the Champions League in the 2010–11 season.

Aurelio de Laurentiis’s reign of Napoli

Since their foray into the Champions League, Napoli have never looked back. However, De Laurentiis, despite his work in bringing success down to southern Italy, has over time become a somewhat unpopular figure in the city. The primary complaints from fans about his management lie in the high ticket prices for the matches and the regular sale of the best players of the club (such as the club selling their best center-back at the peak of his career, Kalidou Koulibaly, to Chelsea in 2022 for around €33 million). However, it may also be argued that under Laurentiis, the finances of Napoli are in much better shape than the rest of the top clubs in Serie A, with the club only posting losses of 13% of its revenue compared to Roma’s 63% from 2018 to 2022.

At the end of the day, no matter how one may judge Napoli’s owner, Aurelio de Laurentiis, as a Napoli fan, no one can deny that he has been the central figure in bringing footballing glory back to the historic city of Naples and may forever be remembered in the memories of the club, long after his ownership and life.