Magistrates in Rome have officially referred a case into alleged false accounting at Serie A club Napoli to trial, drawing fresh attention to one of Italian football’s most powerful clubs and its long-serving president Aurelio De Laurentiis.
The investigation concerns Napoli’s financial records for 2019, 2020, and 2021, focusing particularly on the transfers of Kostas Manolas and Victor Osimhen, two of the most high-profile deals in the club’s recent history.
Manolas joined from AS Roma in 2019, while Osimhen arrived from Lille in the summer of 2020 for a club record fee of €71.25 million (£62.82m). The Greek defender later moved to Olympiacos in January 2022, and Osimhen was sold to Galatasaray for €75 million in July, following a season-long loan in Turkey during 2024–25.
Both De Laurentiis and Napoli CEO Andrea Chiavelli were placed under investigation and will now face trial, marking a new chapter in a legal process that has already stirred debate within Italian football circles.
In a statement, Napoli strongly rejected any wrongdoing:
“Napoli expresses its astonishment and dismay at the decision to refer the case to trial taken by the Preliminary Investigating Magistrate in Rome. All the technical reports, which are of the highest standard, have unequivocally proven the correctness of the club’s actions, both with regard to the recording of transactions in the financial statements and with regard to player transfers. The prosecution itself correctly acknowledged, during its closing arguments, that Napoli did not derive any advantage from the disputed transactions.
The club is calm and confident about the outcome of the legal proceedings, which will begin in over a year’s time, with the first hearing set for 2 December 2026, where the truth about the matter will certainly be re-established.”
De Laurentiis’ legal representatives Gaetano Scalise, Fabio Fulgeri and Lorenzo Contrada also expressed their frustration, telling La Repubblica:
“We are absolutely astonished by the judge’s decision. It is further proof of how the preliminary hearing is becoming a pointless process until we have a truly third-party judge. All the conditions were in place to acquit the defendants because the public prosecutor’s office, or rather the Guardia di Finanza, also made mistakes in applying accounting principles.”
The case adds to a growing list of financial controversies in Serie A, following the high-profile Juventus investigation. In 2023, Juventus accepted a fine of €718,000 as part of a plea bargain with the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) over financial malpractice.
Napoli, however, maintain that their actions were fully compliant with accounting and transfer regulations, insisting that no benefit was gained from the disputed transactions. The first hearing in the case is scheduled for 2 December 2026, meaning the process is likely to unfold over a lengthy period that will be closely watched across Italy.
For travelling fans and readers of Secret Match Day, this story underscores how deeply football, finance and power are intertwined in Italy. From the roar of the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on matchdays to the courtroom drama in Rome, Napoli’s latest chapter shows that Italian football remains as captivating off the pitch as it is on it.
