The clash is a tough one and risks having repercussions with unpredictable outcomes. On the negotiation linked to the clause to be paid to free Luciano Spalletti and allow him to accept the position of coach of the national team in place of the outgoing Roberto Mancini, after 48 hours of skirmishes, the intervention arrived with a straight leg, via a note, from the president of the Neapolitan club Aurelio De Laurentiis who does not intend to take any step back, inviting the FIGC to pay the amount stipulated in the contract linked to Spalletti’s resignation as Napoli coach.
“All of this is inconsistent. For Calcio Napoli, three million is certainly not a lot, and for Aurelio De Laurentiis it is even less. But the question in the present case is not one of ‘vil money’, but a question of principle, which does not concern only Calcio Napoli, but the entire Italian football system, which must shed its amateurish attitude to face the challenges by respecting the rules of companies, joint-stock companies, the market”. This is the first ‘jab’ by Adl who raises the ‘wall against the wall’ and then sinks the blow with a further fundamental step: “Until the ‘rule’ is allowed to be the ‘derogation’, the football system will not be able to evolve and the Spalletti cases will continue to exist, as ‘authoritative’ commentators who do not know how a company should be managed in a healthy way will continue to express themselves”. Adl therefore reiterates its willingness not to renounce the almost three million penalty. For him, all the pressure are useless: “One cannot stop in front of the assumption (paying on behalf of the coach) of one million gross per year to free him from his contractual obligation (commitment not only towards Napoli but towards all his millions of fans). All of this is inconsistent.”
The FIGC has moved forward in the last few hours also comforted by some legal opinions according to which Italy is a club, it will not play against Napoli and therefore the competition regime would disappear. But for the lawyer Mattia Grassani, an expert in sports law who has often assisted Napoli, the situation, albeit atypical, is at the same time clear. Speaking on Radio Sportiva, he underlined that the penalty also applies to the national team: “From the point of view of the typology of the new job, there is nothing atypical: a club is equivalent to a national team in the same obligation, to pay an indemnity which is a consideration that led Napoli to give its approval because Spalletti would have remained firm if he had not resolved his relationship”.
