The sporting director of Napoli Giovanni Mannafrom the Social Football Summit 2024, also spoke about the club’s summer transfer choices: “We had a diktat because we had to finance the transfer market with the sale of Victor because he wanted to leave. There was a choice on the prospect defender to replace Ostigard, Spinazzola to zero and then play the chips on Buongiorno, we were lucky in being able to make the operation at the right time. We were then lucky that, despite not selling, Napoli also had the economic strength to invest without transfers. We tried to finance the market in other ways with smaller transfers and these operations failed. We negotiated the players to get them all, then I risked losing relationships with an agent or a club. We made all the players we wanted , we also had Brescianini who had undergone medical examinations, it was a complicated period but it’s the dynamics of the market.
We reflected in economic terms with the President and decided to invest. In ten days or less we did everything. The defeat in Verona didn’t have an impact, I spent a week in London but things weren’t resolved. Brighton had to buy to sell Gilmour, Chelsea had demands for Lukaku and we didn’t know if we would have had the financial strength to sign McTominay. We were extremely fortunate to receive the green light from the President. I am in favor of termination clauses, having a fixed value represents an important benchmark then some like Barcelona set enormous values.
I don’t think it created problems with Osimhen, the problem arose from the negative season. It depends not only on the technical value of the player, if Napoli had finished second or third in the standings someone would probably have paid the clause. We want to reward Khvicha’s career in Napoli, regardless of the fact that he still has two years left on his contract. There are many dynamics and we must agree on all the dynamics. I don’t like living this torment, we are living it with great tranquility. If this situation is not resolved we will talk about it again at the end of the season. We don’t want to shift attention from the pitch, we are in agreement with the player on this. There are too many variables for January, the January market is complicated. It’s called repair, let’s see where we get and then we’ll make our choices. We are always attentive to opportunities, we have invested a lot and there will certainly be no big hits. The team had been built on another game system, then the coach is so intelligent that he changed something. Maybe we are numerically short, but we will do things logically. Closing the transfer market before the season would be logical, we remove alibis from the system. We start playing and stop, some are out of the squad on the first day because they have to leave. It must be the European system that wants this, we haven’t talked about it yet. We need to be united, otherwise I arrive at the end of the transfer window without having sold a player and then he leaves and I have no purchasing power. The big five among the European championships would be enough, but this is already not easy. Lukaku? Romelu is a footballer who is useful to everyone in Italy, it is a certainty and he has worked with the coach in a very profitable way. He is a player who moves in the Italian championship, every week there is a controversy. He scored 4 goals and 4 assists, he’s always doing well and you can’t argue with that. In the eyes of Napoli fans there is a player like Osimhen who won the championship as a dominator. However, a player like Lukaku cannot be discussed, it should also be underlined that he also strongly wanted to come to Naples.